I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 73

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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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Chapter 73. Teaching the Cat a Lesson

The 8th Floor of Maseong Palace.

A violent explosion thundered through the air.

Boom!

“Ibleing!”

Pendal shouted and yanked Ibleing back just as his fingers tightened on the sword hilt.

In the next instant, an explosion erupted before them, and both men barely dodged the blast.

A Weapon Type soldier had fired something resembling a cannon.

“Whoa, thanks, Captain!”
“Fall back!”

At Pendal’s command, his team quickly regrouped around him.

“Hetoria!”
“On it, Captain!”

The moment Pendal called, a woman with crimson hair whipping about her raised her staff instantly.

A volley of ice shards, tinged with crimson, exploded forward from her staff.

Crack!

The ice shattered with a deafening boom, obliterating the sword-wielding Weapon Type soldiers clustered ahead.

Seeing this, Pendal touched down in front of them.

“Exhale.”

Pendal let out a shallow breath and quickly surveyed the space around him.

Everyone looked exhausted, but none bore visible wounds.

Clatter-clatter—

As they caught their breath, a rattling echoed all around them.

When Pendal lifted his gaze, the landscape beyond the windows was rushing past rapidly.

‘Still can’t get used to this view.’

The broad wooden space and rows of seats resembled the interior of a carriage.

Remembering how soldiers had filled every one of those seats just moments ago, Pendal’s expression turned grim.

The 8th Floor carriage district.

Each carriage had its own zone, and the deeper one ventured, the greater both the number and quality of soldiers became.

Each carriage had a total of four doors.

Without someone possessing a special ability like a scout, this place was a malicious maze where the carriage’s troop count reset from the start, as though by design.

“Captain, it looks like we’re almost there.”

The scout officer pushed up his goggles as he spoke.

Nakcheon was within reach.

At that news, tension settled over the group like a shadow.

“We’ve come this far.”

Pendal clenched his fist and turned to regard them all.

“This time, we take Nakcheon.”

Every eye in the Pendal Lord company blazed with resolve.

Then it happened.

Thud—

The carriage shuddered briefly at the sharp, hollow sound.

When Pendal’s head snapped up, there stood a woman in the doorway.

Scarlet ears, pointed like a tiger’s, rose from her hair; a single eye patch lay beneath the strands.

Weapons hung across her entire body, including her back, and her gaze swept across the interior in one cold glance.

“How irritating—all packed in like this.”

The moment those words left her lips, Pendal felt the hair rise across his entire body.

“Everyone, run!”

The instant Pendal screamed the order.

Splatter—

The sharp, wet sound of something exploding echoed through the carriage.

When Pendal turned his head, he saw the corpse of the man they’d called Ibleing.

“Move it aside.”

The body was missing everything above the neck.

“Ibleing!”

When one of the team members cried out in fury, someone grabbed her mouth, wrenched open the nearest door, and bolted through it.

And that decision was wise.

The other team members fled through the closest exits without even time to recover Ibleing’s remains.

Pendal was their strongest, and he’d ordered them to run.

They all understood what that meant.

“What, running away?”

As the woman’s lips curled into an annoyed smirk, Pendal thrust both arms high into the air.

Crack!

In that instant, sparks erupted from Pendal’s palms and blazed into the carriage in a heartbeat.

Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!

The moment the Raioner collided with her Aura and detonated, Pendal drew the Okcheun without hesitation.

Simultaneously, he burst the Raioner forward with the Aura that bloomed from it and rushed at her with everything he had.

Clang!

But his blade met a small dagger she’d drawn—blocked it as if the sky had fallen.

“You’ve got quite a decent weapon there.”

With that, her pupil—visible in the gap where her eye was—gleamed with trembling hunger as she gazed at Pendal’s Okcheun.

True to her title as the Weaponed Princess, her obsession with arms had ignited once more.

“Ugh!”

In that moment, Pendal barely evaded the dagger that slashed toward his jaw and rolled across the floor.

Blood trickled down from beneath his chin.

He’d thought he’d dodged it—his reflexes simply hadn’t caught up.

“What’s that weapon’s name?”

At her question, Pendal felt a chill and gnashed his teeth.

Ibleing had died in an instant, but the rest of the team had escaped.

“Find out for yourself!”

So Pendal detonated another Raioner and bolted through a door without hesitation.

The moment he entered another section, a soldier noticed him and began to rise, but it mattered little now.

The danger signals from Pendal’s body were screaming louder than ever before.

If he wanted to live, he had to run.

That woman was off the scale, no matter what anyone said.

Thud!

But as Pendal crashed through the carriage door, the woman kicked it open right after him.

Ignoring her, the moment Pendal sprinted at full speed, the Weaponed Princess let out a low chuckle.

“If you want those teammates alive, I’d advise you not to run.”

It was at that instant.

The moment she raised the gauntlet with thorns sprouting from its surface, her silhouette wavered and dispersed.

In its place materialized five shadow figures bearing the likeness of Shuah Delpia.

They were not the equal of her true form, yet the aura emanating from each shadow figure was that of Pendal or higher.

The gauntlet’s name was Marpalga.

It possessed only thirty percent of her true power, but it was a Weapon Type capable of summoning shadow figures with the exact same combat patterns as herself.

In that instant, her shadow figures scattered without hesitation toward the carriage doors.

Pendal’s eyes widened as comprehension struck him—understanding exactly what her intent was.

She was about to slaughter every single member of his team.

“Stop!”

At Pendal’s shout, she twirled the short sword she held in her hand lazily.

“That depends entirely on what you do, newbie.”

Her language was crude, yet amusement flickered in one corner of her eye—a deliberate signal for him to grasp her meaning.

She had come searching for Ureoseong, only to encounter yet another new plaything by chance.

She was thoroughly pleased with herself.

Pendal understood her intent well enough.

Ever since she first laid eyes on the Okcheun, her gaze had been fixed on it alone.

Witnessing this, Pendal’s grip on the hand holding the Okcheun tightened until his knuckles went white.

“So if I hand over the Okcheun, you’ll let us live?”
“Mm, we’ll see.”

Upon hearing Shuah Delpia’s response, Pendal lowered the hand with which he had been about to open the carriage door.

Then he began moving slowly toward her.

Cold sweat beaded on Pendal’s forehead.

The Shuah Delpia who had appeared so abruptly was, by any measure, a monster of unparalleled danger.

There was no guarantee whatsoever that handing her the Okcheun would persuade her to let them leave alive.

Yet even as these thoughts ran through him, Pendal began gathering his Aura with full intensity from deep within his body.

If he did this, he would be unable to even challenge Nakcheon—but survival came first.

‘Just once.’

He had to kill Shuah Delpia in that single moment.

It was a Secret Technique he had been saving for his confrontation with Nakcheon, but now that mattered little.

All that mattered now was focusing everything on eliminating this woman.

“You.”

In that instant, Pendal saw the Armed Princess’s mocking smile flash across her face.

“You scatter your killing intent like that, and you think I’m a fool?”
Crash!

The moment the Armed Princess finished her sneer, Pendal unleashed Raioner at full power without hesitation.

Blaze!

In that instant, jade light poured forth from the Okcheun blade.

The Okcheun’s effect was a technique that stripped away all sensation from those around the caster in a single moment.

Even the Armed Princess could not resist the Okcheun’s effect—one of her eyes twisted sharply shut.

Within that white space.

As Pendal converted his Aura into Raioner, he poured all his strength into the Okcheun.

His Aura was forcibly transmuted into Raioner, and though his body screamed with the sensation of being torn apart, he gritted his teeth and endured.

In the same moment, Pendal pulled the Okcheun back and thrust it forward with all his might.

Crack-sizzle!

Lightning energy erupting from the Okcheun was discharged by the force of Pendal’s thrust.

Thunderwolf Drawn Sword.

In form, it resembled a wolf.

The lightning wolf, darting forward with savage speed, lunged at the Armed Princess’s throat—her senses dulled by the Okcheun—seeking to tear it out.

Snap!

Just as Pendal willed it, the Armed Princess’s throat was cleanly severed by the lightning wolf.

When Pendal sensed his victory.

The Armed Princess’s one remaining eye slowly opened.

“I told you.”
Gasp!

In that moment, Pendal’s hand flew to his own throat.

There, mirrored exactly as if reflected in glass, was the same wound the Armed Princess had just suffered—her throat torn open.

As blood welled up, Pendal’s eyes widened in shock.

From the Armed Princess’s severed throat, black smoke coiled upward—yet she seemed utterly indifferent to the pain.

“Did I strike you as funny?”

As she finished speaking, Pendal’s body flew backward through the air.

The Armed Princess’s gauntleted fist had struck him cleanly in the stomach.

Pendal’s entrails felt torn and scattered as he crashed through chairs and tumbled across the floor.

The soldiers, seeing him sprawled there, thoughtlessly surged forward and raised their blades—until Shuah Delpia flicked her hand casually and shattered them where they stood.

“Don’t go getting more blood on our daughter.”

She hadn’t saved Pendal out of any mercy toward him; she simply didn’t want Okcheun to stain itself further with blood.

With that, she reached down toward Pendal, who still lay unable to rise.

“Why’d you have to tear at someone’s throat anyway? You just splattered blood all over her.”

The moment she reached down to lift Okcheun, Pendal’s hand shot out and seized her wrist.

His grip was sudden, desperate.

When Shuah Delpia opened her eyes lazily, Pendal spoke through dimly flickering eyes.

“If I give you Okcheun, you won’t touch my team… right?”

His voice came broken and jagged, his throat ravaged—yet the question hung in the air.

“That?”

She spoke with the dismissal of someone stating a trivial fact.

“By now, they’re all dead anyway.”

Her tone carried the implication that she’d never intended to spare them at all.

Pendal heard this and fury ignited—he gritted his teeth hard enough to crack them.

“You… bitch, I swear I’ll kill you.”
“Really?”

At his words, she lifted the gauntlet.

Her target: his head.

Anticipating the brains that would soon splatter, she smiled brilliantly.

“I look forward to it.”

The instant her fist descended—without the slightest hesitation—

A deafening explosion rocked the carriage.

Black Flame erupted from behind her, and Shuah Delpia crashed through one of the carriage doors and tumbled away.

“Damn it! That burns!”

She shrieked as Black Flame clung to her body, rolling across the ground, while Pendal lifted his head with a dazed expression.

Before him passed a boy, moving with deliberate slowness.

Black hair, a blade dark as midnight in his hand, and a raven rising from his shoulder with a beat of its wings.

“Krash Balheim?” Pendal murmured, stunned.

In that same moment, Krash gave him a brief glance—and then passed straight through toward the carriage section where Shuah Delpia was rolling.

As Krash stepped through the shattered carriage door, Maseong Palace’s self-repair ability brought the door sliding shut behind him with a creak.

Beyond the door, Krash caught sight of the Armed Princess, who had already extinguished all the Black Flame.

She bore some burn wounds, but nothing seemed particularly severe.

‘A Quickdraw Art-heated Extinction Flame Sword, and that’s all the damage it does.’

It was almost laughable how little a wound she’d sustained.

Truly a monster of a woman.

“What are you? Why am I injured? My Igardieum should be protecting me!”

She whirled the short dagger in her hands, crying out toward Krash in bewilderment at why she’d taken damage at all.

‘Because the Igardieum can’t reflect World Erosion, that’s why.’

But instead of answering, Krash raised a hand and rolled his neck loosely.

It was his own form of warm-up before combat.

He’d hoped to time his encounter with Nakcheon appropriately, or else simply give up and leave.

But the Armed Princess’s attempt to kill Pendal had forced his hand into action.

‘Damn it. Can’t afford to lose him before I steal the Raioner.’

Not when each skill was worth its weight in gold.

He’d simply have to accept some blood loss.

Krash fixed his gaze on the Armed Princess.

‘That vacant look on her face — some things never change.’

But true to her feline nature, she acted with surprising caution until she was certain of victory.

Of course, if the power gap was obvious enough, she showed no restraint.

Against an opponent with too many suspicious qualities, she didn’t move rashly.

So the Armed Princess kept her full strength hidden.

She tested her enemies with weapons other than her true armaments, the Thirteen Armaments.

But the moment she judged herself superior—

she hunted them down without hesitation.

‘And that habit will be your worst mistake today.’

Time to teach you that caution can poison you just as well.

“……You. You’re. Direct. Balheim. Bloodline.”

Looking at Krash’s appearance, his eye color, his hair, she suddenly realized he was of direct Balheim descent.

So Krash decided to add one more thing to that revelation.

“Princess of Weapons, Shuah Delpia.”

The moment he spoke her full name, the Princess’s eyes narrowed to sharp slits.

“So that’s why Igardieum didn’t work. You bastard—you’re a World Erosion user. Don’t tell me you’re wearing a Balheim bloodline shell?”

She reacted as though she had pierced through Krash’s entire identity in that instant.

It was the sort of probing remark the Princess often made.

But her eyes gleamed with such keen intelligence that she regarded Krash with unmistakable gravity.

She knew all too well that facing another World Erosion user was no simple matter, and that caution guided her response.

Krash did not answer her. Instead, he kindled a deep black flame atop his silent blade.

That black flame only confirmed her suspicion that he was indeed a World Erosion user.

“Ureoseong belongs to me. Get out of my way.”

How dare you covet what’s mine.

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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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