I Stepped on Their Shadows and Skills Started Copying Like Crazy - Chapter 32

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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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32
[Hidden Floor Entered: 10.5th Floor – Goblin Lord’s Secret Treasure Vault]
As I stepped through the portal, the entire world ignited in gold.
“Oh…!”
Gold and silver treasures rose toward a distant ceiling, forming hillsides of wealth, with items of obvious rarity scattered carelessly throughout the gaps.
The word ‘treasure vault’ didn’t do it justice—this was a mother lode.
Mysterious ores with names I didn’t know tumbled at my feet alongside coins, and the moment I took a careful step forward, gold scattered across the ground with a musical clink.
“Wow… this is insane.”
“Tsk-tsk, a simple-minded fool getting wide-eyed—I can hear the stupidity all the way from here.”
“…Eh?”
A voice shattered my awe.
Following the sound, I looked up to see a goblin—a single goblin—sitting brazenly atop a mountain of coins.
‘What in the world is that?’
Unlike any goblin I’d encountered, this one wore neat, well-tailored clothes and was polishing a jewel the size of its own head with one sleeve.
I’d never seen a goblin like this before. It was almost refreshing.
“…Wait. Did that goblin just speak human language?”
First the armor talked, now this goblin?
“Do monsters have some kind of group language program or something?”
I was lost in this absurd thought when an indignant shriek cut through the air.
“Hey, you fool! Do you dare lump me in with those ignorant rabble you call goblins?!”
The creature set down its jewel and screeched with outrage.
“I am the servant of the great and mighty Lord Goldarack, ruler of the Red Lands, a noble vault keeper managing the spoils of his conquest, and the greatest intellect among goblinkind—Snig is my name! You cannot possibly compare me to the barbaric vermin you mistook me for!”
There was no explanation for why it spoke human language, but it was clear this creature considered itself important.
And from its boasting, I now knew the name of the Goblin Lord who owned this vault.
“So this treasure vault belongs to Goldarack, and you’re the keeper. Got it.”
“Precisely. Behold! All of this—these are the spoils your master accumulated as he conquered the Red Lands!”
Snig practically flew down the hillside of coins, animated by the mention of his master, and stood before me.
He seemed to be trying to meet me at eye level, though he should have stopped halfway down.
“I know not how you reached this place, but it was no easy feat, I’m sure. In recognition of your effort, and following the Lord’s final wishes, I shall extend mercy to you.”
Oh, this turn of events! A reward.
“Take what you will. You may choose one item from this vault and leave with it.”
Wait. One?
That wasn’t part of my calculations.
I couldn’t help but ask directly.
“…One? Just one item? From all of this?”
After collecting treasure maps across three entire floors for this so-called 10.5th Floor, they were offering just one?
If there were only one decent item worth taking, I’d have accepted that readily enough.
But the situation here was entirely different.
“Come on, let me take more. There’s so much here. Money’s literally rolling around at my feet.”
“Absolutely not. One!”
Who did he think he was testing?
“Look, I can’t accept those terms.”
[Special Rule Applied: Lord’s Mercy]
[Visitor may withdraw only a single item of treasure from the vault.]
The system message fell like a final judgment, as if responding to my protest.
It must have only been visible to me, but Snig’s timing was perfect as he clicked his tongue.
“Tsk-tsk, foolish human… great greed brings great ruin. Follow the rules properly, or else leave empty-handed.”
These creatures were tag-teaming against me.
“Oh, that’s how we’re playing this, huh?”
Fine. I had a plan of my own.
Shlick.
I drew Ya Sang Gok from my waist in one smooth motion.
“You dare draw a blade?! What do you think that changes? Nothing, fool! Even if you kill me, nothing will change!”
“I’m not going to kill you.”
“Then you mean to threaten me into giving you more treasure? Then what’s the point of—”
Instead of answering, I reversed my grip on Ya Sang Gok and drove it deep into the pile of coins beneath my feet.
Crunch!
“You… you stabbed the treasure?”
While Snig reeled from shock, I channeled my power into the blade.
‘Flash.’
This isn’t an ordinary swing.
What I want right now is an explosion.
I detonated the compressed mana at the blade’s tip.
Boom―!
“Whoaaa!”
Snig threw his hands up to shield his face.
Gold and silver rained upward in the violent blast.
After a brief flight through the air, every piece that fell back down was shattered beyond recognition.
Fractured, broken, melted — all victims of the mana explosion.
Exactly what I’d been aiming for.
“Yeah, this works.”
Snig’s eyes went blank as he finally grasped what I was doing.
“You don’t mean to say…!”
I gave him a broad smile.
“That’s right. I’m just going to smash it all.”
“You absolute madman…!”
“We bled for this. We came all this way. And you’re telling me to grab just one item from a vault overflowing with treasure? Please. I’d rather not.”
Maybe someone else would’ve been grateful for the offer.
But unfortunately, he’d picked the wrong person.
“That’s why — you’ve probably heard the saying: ‘If I can’t have it, I’ll destroy it.'”
“Stop! You can’t do this! Not in the sacred Lord’s Mercy! What audacity is this!”
“I told you already. I’m in the middle of destroying it all.”
Originally that was the extent of my plan, but then another idea struck me.
“Wait… if I burn everything down and melt it into one lump, doesn’t that count as one item?”
Sure, some items would be lost to the fire, but the vault was stacked with treasure mountains regardless.
If I melted it all down into one massive golden nugget…
That’d still be one, wouldn’t it?
Was I actually a genius?
“Hey, what do you think? If we melt all this treasure into one piece, would that count as taking one item or not?”
“You… you’re insane! You’re going to melt all of this? Do you have any idea what these things are worth?”
“No idea, don’t care. They’re things I’ll never own anyway.”
I was about to resume the treasure massacre when—
“Yiii! You utter maniac! Stop! Stop this instant!”
He grabbed at my pant leg, trying to hold me back.
But his grip was far too weak.
“Fine. Just hang on down there then. At least you won’t get hurt.”
I didn’t particularly want to hurt a goblin I could actually talk to.
After that, I smashed and burned everything while dragging the goblin by my leg.
“Noooo! You can’t! That was a gift from the Northern human lord…!”
“Oh, really?”
Then I had all the more reason to destroy it.
Crack!
“Stop! No! Please, stop!”
Once I’d begun in earnest, I could feel the intensity building like a crescendo.
Combat wasn’t just about facing down an enemy, it seemed.
“Yeah, this feels good. Work’s getting easier.”
Only now did he realize I wasn’t merely making a show of force.
The goblin moved to negotiate.
“Wait, wait! Take this instead! This is the finest blade in our collection. The most valuable thing in this entire vault! Please, just take it and stop!”
Even at a glance, it was an extraordinary sword.
‘At least masterwork grade. Could this be…a legendary blade?’
I wanted nothing more than to check its information, but I couldn’t show that weakness.
‘I can’t let him see me falter now.’
My firm stance was already bearing fruit — his desperation was showing through.
I couldn’t let up now.
“I don’t want it.”
“Why on earth not!”
“Ugh, stop making a fuss. Get out of here. Why do you keep interfering? I agreed to take only one item, so I’m melting everything down.”
“Do you think the Tower will accept that! What if you end up with nothing!”
“Then I’ll just have to live with the disappointment.”
“…What?”
The creature’s face went slack.
“You think I’d do this without considering that?”
“Then why in the world…!”
He gestured with his chin at the gold coins melting before them, letting out a sharp laugh.
“The unit cost doesn’t add up. It just doesn’t.”
* * *
Snig had been enjoying a peaceful day guarding the Lord’s Secret Treasure Vault as usual when the uninvited guest arrived.
‘Another one come begging for scraps, I suppose.’
This wasn’t the first time an intruder had shown up, so there was nothing remarkable about it.
‘I’ll hand out something suitably modest and send them on their way, like always. If they get greedy… hehehehe.’
Intruders always lost their minds the moment they stepped inside.
They’d agonize over the instruction to take only one thing, wrestle with temptation, and inevitably try to harm the seemingly defenseless Snig—only to meet a pathetic end.
Witnessing the demise of such foolish creatures was one of Snig’s small pleasures.
‘Even one item would be more than they deserve. Greedy fools bring ruin upon themselves in the end.’
He’d assumed this visitor would be no different.
‘No… this one is different.’
Perhaps one in ten visitors showed up with the sense to follow the rules, the clever sort? This was not one of them.
This creature was entirely unlike any guest Snig had encountered before.
‘A madman… he’s a madman.’
Instead of taking one thing, he’d decided to destroy everything.
At first, Snig had thought it was merely a crude bluff.
But no—the creature meant every word.
By some sorcery, flames poured from the blade in his grip, and everything the blade’s edge touched became ash and molten metal in an instant.
And it wasn’t stopping. It was happening still, even now.
Screeeech—!
The flaming sword traced an arc through the air.
Yet another treasure met its doom.
Whoooosh!
“No! Not the precious tapestry!”
A thousand-year-old silken bolt brought from the Eastern Empire scattered as ash on the wind.
The mountainous piles of gold coins melted and flowed, forming shallow golden hills, while streams of liquefied gold ran across the floor.
A veritable golden hell.
For Snig, who had guarded this vault through ages beyond counting, no sight could be more horrifying than this.
“No! Stop! The Lord’s spoils… his very history…!”
As if the whole world were crumbling.
‘If only he had attacked me instead…!’
Then the mountain of treasures would have coalesced in an instant, awakening the Golden Giant to crush this madman into a handful of bloody pulp.
Most visitors who came here in ages past had learned this lesson, and thus became part of the vault’s collection themselves.
The problem was that Snig could not command it.
The Golden Giant only stirred when a visitor attacked Snig directly.
But this lunatic before him wasn’t attacking Snig at all—he was ravaging the treasures—so the vault’s mightiest guardian melted away without throwing a single punch.
“Please… strike me down instead! Attack me, I’m begging you!”
“Why would I? You said yourself there’s nothing in it for me if you die.”
The pitiless destroyer of treasures paid Snig no mind whatsoever, laying waste to the hoard as though it had murdered his kin.
Meanwhile, everything Snig’s purpose was meant to protect crumbled to dust before his eyes.
Unable to bear it any longer, Snig began tearing at his own head, bouncing about in desperation.
“Nooooo! Bad Snig! Worthless Snig! I should have stopped him! I should have put my life on the line to stop him!”
It wasn’t too late.
He could still throw himself at that blade and block it.
But his body would not obey him.
“Why can’t I…!”
His hands trembled uncontrollably, his legs rooted to the ground as though they’d grown there.
A feeling bizarre, alien, utterly foreign to him.
‘Fear…? Can it be that I, Snig, am feeling fear of this creature?’
Since the Lord had chosen him and made him his instrument, he had never once felt this way.
Snig, the Lord’s faithful servant, trembling in terror before a mere human!
“…!”
Snig froze, shock cutting deeper than fear itself, as he stared up at the human in disbelief.
The one who had returned to him a fear he’d forgotten.
The man looked different now.
‘Treading over molten gold, standing in that magnificent posture…!’
A bold spirit that would reduce it all to ash rather than let it belong to another.
A Hegemon who made those who defied him kneel, and destroyed those who refused to submit.
Before such a one, gold—or anything greater still—would be worthless.
Snig knew a goblin who had been like that.
Long ago, in the Red Lands, the absolute sovereign Lord Goldarack had united everything—land, people, treasure—and made it all bow before him.
He had been exactly like that.
— Snig, remember my words well.
For a moment, the voice of the master Snig had served with his entire life echoed in his ears.
— Should someone find my legacy and be satisfied with mere gold, wagging his tail, give him a single piece of gold. That one has come begging like a pauper. But….
“…!”
— If there appears one who, faced with all my lifetime’s spoils, does not covet the glory others have built, but stands ready to raise his own with his own hands, give it to him. A king is not one who inherits the throne, but one who seizes it for himself.
Over the shadow cast long beneath the man who turned his back to the roaring flames, the phantom of Lord Goldarack seemed to overlap.
“Hah…!”
In that instant, a thrilling chill ran down his spine.
“Ah…!”
He understood at last.
“Yes… so that’s it. You’ve finally come.”
The very successor the Lord had spoken of.
The arrival of a legitimate heir!
Understanding what he must do, Snig at once knelt before Si Hyeon.
“Stop! Enough! I surrender!”
Only then did Si Hyeon lower his sword and turn his head with a wry tilt.
“What? You’re giving up?”
“I am. Unconditional surrender! Please, put out that fire!”
“Just words?”
Even Si Hyeon’s irritating tone sounded different now.
‘Victory must surely be followed by reward. Ah, truly, he possesses the qualities of a Hegemon.’
Snig trembled, not daring to raise his head, prostrating himself as though to strike his brow against the ground.
“How could it be otherwise? It is only natural to offer tribute. So please, accept it.”
With trembling hands, he reached into his garments and withdrew a small, worn wooden box.
“I, Snig, by the command of Lord Goldarack, convey his will to one who has proven worthy as his successor.”
Holding the wooden box aloft with both hands, Snig lay prostrate and spoke.
“Do not covet the crumbs fallen to the ground. Lift your head, and the world will be yours.”
The true legacy of the Lord—what Snig had kept hidden in his breast for long years, revealed to no one.
“One who is worthy, take this.”
I Copied the Skill Just by Stepping on the Shadow
Author |
Killingpart
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Samyang C&C
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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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