I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 88

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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 88. Hunting a Sixth Grade Invasive Species

The Demon Realm, one of the Forbidden Zones.

True to its name, the Invasive Species that emerged from the Demon Realm operated by an entirely different logic than the standard varieties.

Elsewhere, Fifth Grade lords—creatures that typically required at least an Expert-ranked knight order to dispatch—appeared at every chokepoint along the way.

The real problem was their numbers. They didn’t appear in ones or twos, but in dozens at a time.

Because of this, the Balheim Knight Order advanced by moving from one battle to the next without pause.

Master Swordmasters formed the vanguard, while Fourth and Fifth Swordmasters took supporting roles.

‘Smooth progress.’

And there, at the very front of the Balheim Knight Order.

Lilish swept her gaze across the surroundings, her eyes falling on the torn corpse of an Invasive Species before her.

There was still some distance before they reached the Eastern Region that had been reported.

The Balheim Knight Order, trained specifically to handle World Erosion, followed her lead without difficulty.

‘The environment of the Demon Realm is challenging, certainly.’

Save for the black rainwater obscuring vision, the Demon Realm was not impossible to navigate.

Of course, the continuous expenditure of Aura over long periods made the drain significant, which did present complications.

A figure caught Lilish’s eye.

Jet-black hair, a raven perpetually perched on one shoulder, and eyes hooded in wraps—

Everything about him suggested dark connections; he was Krash, a member of the Cheongae Knight Order.

Before entering the Demon Realm, Lilish had learned Krash’s identity from the vice-captain of the Cheongae Knight Order.

‘Krash.’

A half-brother, and the youngest among them.

When she first heard of him, she’d been puzzled.

She couldn’t fathom why Krash would hide his appearance to come here.

In her memories, Krash had always been treated as the ne’er-do-well of the family.

Recently, word had trickled in that he’d changed, but she’d never verified it herself.

It made sense—as captain of the Master Swordmasters, Lilish lived in constant activity.

When Krash was taking his first steps.

She was already in the order, wielding her blade every day.

Though at that time, it had also been her desire to catch up to the older brother above her in rank.

She had always trained well.

And before long, having grown in such a way, she was now twenty-seven years old.

Because of this, she was a full fourteen years older than Krash.

An age gap closer to that of an aunt and nephew than of siblings.

Because of such an age difference, and given how consumed she was with her duties in the knight order, Lilish had never once had a real conversation with her younger siblings.

And he was a child of a different mother, besides.

Even with Belrokin, who shared her blood, the years between them had made things awkward.

Charlotte, of course—and naturally Krash as well—were difficult for her to approach.

Deep down, part of her had always wished to get along better with her siblings.

But in truth, that very longing had been swallowed again and again by her obsession with the inherent martial gift of Balheim.

‘Krash didn’t even come to Belrokin’s funeral.’

At the time of Belrokin’s funeral, she had been startled and made the journey to attend.

Upon hearing that Belrokin had died in World Erosion, her thoughts turned to her mother.

Her mother, who had worried so deeply for Belrokin.

As the eldest, she felt a pang of guilt for having failed to look after her brother.

But was that guilt hers alone?

Charlotte had left the moment Belrokin’s body was buried in the ground.

Krash had not come, it was said, suffering from aftereffects of the shock he’d witnessed when Belrokin died during World Erosion.

Of course her eldest brother—no, her father as well—had left just as quickly.

Only her stepmother had spoken a few words to her.

The family had not given Belrokin’s death any real weight.

She had stood in silence before his grave for a time, lost in thought.

According to his personal attendant, Belrokin had seemed terribly lonely.

‘Lonely.’

It was something that any direct descendant of Balheim would naturally experience, they said.

Yet those words had lodged themselves in her heart.

For her own family was, quite seriously, devastatingly barren of warmth.

And she knew well that she was no different from the rest.

Was this truly the proper form a family should take?

Though the status of her eldest brother and the rising divinity of Charlotte did exert their own pressure upon her.

Charlotte was the sort who had been drawn to martial prowess since birth, caring little for anything else.

Because she had turned her attention away from her position early on, the family’s grip on her had been comparatively loose.

It was Belrokin’s death that had given her the chance to look back toward her family at last.

And so, while she spent her days wrestling with thoughts of family,

Krash appeared out of nowhere in disguise.

What was she to make of this?

“Hmm.”

The black rain fell in steady drizzle, and even beneath her Robe, the hair at her temples had grown wet; she brushed the damp strands back slowly.

‘He must have some purpose.’

If that were so, couldn’t she, as his sister, help him in some way now?

Ever since arriving in the Demon Realm, she had been wrestling with what to say to him.

“Lilish, do you have something troubling you again?”

It was then that the vice-commander of the Jucheong Knight Order spoke to her, noticing her furrowed brow.

It was Darbiane, who had served as her aide for nearly a decade.

When she had once asked him how to get closer to children,

he had advised her that giving them sweets would do the trick.

By chance, thanks to his suggestion, she had given sweets to Krash’s betrothed.

It had yielded some result.

Perhaps he might offer sound advice this time as well.

“How should one approach someone they haven’t spoken to in a very long time?”
“Simply greet them warmly and courteously, would that not suffice?”
“……That’s the difficult part.”

It was, unfortunately, the hardest task of all.

“Might one consider offering a gift that the other person desires?”
“A gift.”

Lilish pressed her chin thoughtfully with one finger.

If she helped Krash achieve his hidden goal, would that count as a gift?

‘The problem is, I don’t know what that goal is.’

And so she found herself circling back to the original difficulty.

“Is this about Krash?”

Darbiane had posed the question with keen insight.

Belrokin had spent time assisting Lilish, so he picked up on her moods quickly enough.

As the vice-captain of a Master Swordmaster, he’d been briefed on Krash’s identity beforehand.

Lilish didn’t deny it—she simply nodded.

Seeing that, Darbiane glanced around the area.

Then he spotted Reblian, the vice-captain of the Cheongae Knight Order.

“It seems the vice-captain of the Cheongae Knight Order, Reblian, has built up a reasonable rapport with Krash. I’ll ask him directly.”

Reblian and Darbiane were brothers of the same house—the Phenox clan.

It would be easier for him to inquire that way.

“I’m counting on you.”

Darbiane moved to call Reblian over.

And ironically, Krash was watching her do the same.

‘What’s she up to?’

Ever since entering the Demon Realm, she’d been glancing sideways at him.

Krash had picked up on Lilish’s behavior long ago.

At first he’d wondered if she wanted to say something.

But seeing how she hadn’t approached him since, that didn’t seem to be it.

-Maybe she just wants to check in since her brother showed up.

“Lilish wanting to do that?”

Krash let out a snort.

Of all the family, Lilish struck him as the most taciturn.

She handled her work efficiently and never pried into others’ affairs.

That was Lilish Balheim.

For her to be the one making first greetings—

No matter how he thought about it, it made no sense.

-Then why don’t you approach her first? You’ll get your answer that way.
“Right now I’m just another soldier.”

There was no way he could approach the captain of a Master Swordmaster looking like this.

“Captain Lilish!”

At that moment, the scout knight Lilish had sent ahead came running back, calling out to her.

From his appearance, Krash understood that combat was imminent.

“Everyone, prepare yourselves.”

Sure enough, the order came from Lilish immediately.

“That’s the Named Erosion Creature Nisroc we’ve been hunting for.”

It was the moment the scout’s report came through.

Boom!

The entire ground suddenly shuddered beneath them.

The earth trembled violently, as if an earthquake were tearing through it.

As the knights readied themselves for combat, braced for Nisroc to burst forth from the dark forest,

Krash’s eyes snapped open.

‘Not from ahead.’

Krash’s gaze dropped toward the ground.

Spread through his Sixth Sense,

something massive was surging violently upward from deep beneath the earth.

“It’s coming from below!”

Krash’s shout tore through the moment.

Crack!

The entire ground where the knights stood shattered with a deafening roar.

The knights above began plummeting into the collapsed earth below.

Beneath the fractured ground, a surging pool of black rainwater came into view.

It seemed the black rainwater absorbed into the earth had pooled, forming an Underground Lake.

What would happen if they fell in there.

The answer was obvious.

Even wrapped in Aura, the black rainwater would work its way in, transforming them into Rain Humans.

For an ordinary force, it would have been instantaneous annihilation.

But unfortunately, the ones who’d come here were no ordinary knight order.

Clang, clang!

The Balheim Knight Order members escaped the fall by various means across the chasm.

Some halted their descent by driving their blades into the cavern wall.

Others exploded their Aura beneath their feet, using it as a foothold to push themselves clear.

They lived up to their reputation as the strongest knight order, escaping the pit in mere moments.

But there was one.

Someone threw themselves downward.

Trailing long hair of pale blue, the one who plummeted was none other than Lilish.

Splash!

She vanished into the underground waters pooled with black rain.

In that instant, a small whirlpool began to form atop the black lake.

“All of you, ready yourselves. It comes!”
“Prepare to attack!”

The captains, understanding Lilish’s intent, barked orders as they surveyed their knights.

Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack!

In that moment, a colossal alien form erupted through the underground waters’ whirlpool.

Violet-hued skin, a cylindrical mass festooned with grotesque chains across its body.

And simultaneously, four splits opened across its maw, teeth clustering densely within.

The emergence of Nisroc—the Named Erosion Creature that had begun menacing the Eastern Region.

Along Nisroc’s back.

Lilish, blade driven deep, soared upward through the air alongside the creature.

She paid no heed to the tremendous pressure of wind that must have assailed her.

Indeed, even amid such tempest, she carved Sword Scars across Nisroc’s back.

Meanwhile, the knights of Balheim followed her lead, raining blows upon Nisroc.

The burden fell chiefly to her own order, the Jucheong Knight Order.

“Greenwave and Cheongae will hold back the Invasive Species rising from below!”

Save for the Jucheong, the other knight orders engaged the offspring Invasive Species that swarmed from the hole Nisroc had torn open.

It was their role to create a battlefield where the Jucheong could face Nisroc without hindrance.

Krash, naturally, was fulfilling this very duty.

‘Lilish is quite the monster herself.’

Krash, never yielding an inch even as Nisroc thrashed about,

let out a brief breath of admiration watching Lilish unleash her relentless assault.

Though overshadowed by Charlotte,

Lilish too was a swordswoman of untouchable caliber.

—Krash.

Yet separate from such prowess, the realm of World Erosion was one where variables multiplied without end.

Hearing Crimson Garden’s call, Krash crushed the young Nisroc in front of him with his fist, then turned his head.

“Right.”

Far off, something that brushed against his Sixth Sense was hurtling toward him with tremendous force.

A creature that had realized its prey was being hunted.

“Reblian.”

So Krash positioned himself at Reblian’s side.

“……Krash?”

Reblian, who had been commanding from the front and holding back the young Nisroc, turned to look at him.

Krash gave a slight sideways nod.

It was the signal they had arranged beforehand—he intended to act independently.

Reblian’s expression shifted to alarm.

Independent action? In a situation like this?

It was problematic.

“Harpas is coming.”

When Krash relayed the news, Reblian went rigid.

Harpas—the Named Erosion Creature and current ruler of the Eastern Region.

The moment that creature arrived, everything would descend into chaos.

Reblian quickly scanned his surroundings.

But his tracking ability was not on par with Krash’s Sixth Sense.

He could not pinpoint its exact location.

He could barely sense an immense force approaching through the chaos of battle.

“I’ll hold it back. Just so you know.”
“What?! Harpas is a Star Grade 6 Invasive Species! You can’t face it alone, sir!”
“I know. That’s exactly why it’ll be chaos if that thing gets here.”

Reblian cried out in shock, forgetting even to address him as Krash.

Fortunately, with the battle raging, no one heard his shout.

But whether Reblian spoke or stayed silent, Krash was already moving.

“Don’t worry. Whatever else, there’s one thing—”

Black Flame ignited beneath Krash’s feet.

“World Erosion is my specialty.”

In that instant, his body shot through the chaos of the melee in a blur.

Reblian’s eyes flew wide as Krash vanished in an instant.

He’d thought Krash was at the peak of Expert rank.

But those movements just now had far exceeded that level.

‘Just what is Krash?’

He stood dazed for a moment before snapping himself back to focus.

He’d known Krash was far stronger than he’d assumed, but his own task remained unchanged.

‘I need to inform Lilish.’

Only the direct line could stop the direct line’s reckless moves.

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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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