Level -99 Archmage - Chapter 13

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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 13. Three Seconds
The Game Master Andarel had spoken.
Everything needed to conquer the Twelve Divine Generals could be found at the Water-Good Nightclub.
Through the treasures beyond the veil, it was entirely possible to clear the dungeon.
That much, at least, was true.
‘The problem is that I can’t gather enough Points.’
But through ordinary means, it was impossible to accumulate them.
An individual had to personally gather Points and purchase everything they needed.
By the nature of the Abyss, what one acquired could only be used by oneself.
The only thing that could be transferred was a Coin.
However, if there were a party member who listened well, things changed.
One could divide roles sufficiently.
Park Chan-woo equipping the Immortal King Set on Lee Hyuk-soo stemmed from the same logic.
‘The Indomitable effect attached to the Immortal King Set — usable once initially.’
Indomitable triggered when one received a lethal blow.
Three seconds of invincibility — an invulnerability skill!
Once activated, the one-time option disappeared, but those three seconds alone were enough to conquer Yongsinjangs.
Of course, there were complications.
Would Lee Hyuk-soo move according to his wishes?
It meant charging into a place of certain death.
Could he truly throw his life away, trusting only in the Indomitable effect?
Honestly, Park Chan-woo himself would probably refuse.
That was why Park Chan-woo had decided to make Lee Hyuk-soo an irresistible offer.
“Lee Hyuk-soo. I will kill Yongsinjangs.”
“……Can you really kill him?”
Ten minutes remained.
Lee Hyuk-soo asked with a doubtful expression.
This was a monster that had killed fifty thousand people alone.
Park Chan-woo had supposedly killed the Game Master Andarel, but from Lee Hyuk-soo’s perspective, Yongsinjangs seemed far stronger than Andarel.
“If we proceed exactly according to my plan, I can kill Yongsinjangs within the three seconds that Indomitable is active.”
“…Wait. Indomitable only triggers when you receive a lethal blow…… You’re not telling me to court death, are you?”
“Oh, you’re sharp as expected. Indomitable must activate, and you must reach Yongsinjangs within three seconds.”
Indomitable’s activation was the basic premise.
From the start, he had to suffer a lethal blow.
“……Why should I do that?”
However, Lee Hyuk-soo had already purchased the Elixir.
He had followed Park Chan-woo’s instructions at the nightclub, making endless bookings.
Now he only had to escape this Abyss.
With the equipment obtained here, simply raising his Contribution enough would let him easily reach the top twenty thousand.
No matter how much of a demon-slaying monster Park Chan-woo seemed to be, he couldn’t simply obey an order to charge toward his own death.
Seeing the reaction unfold exactly as expected, Park Chan-woo withdrew a Coin from his pocket.
“Take this.”
“……Is this a tip?”
Lee Hyuk-soo caught the thrown Coin and blinked.
It was the Coin he had given to Andarel as a tip.
It was also the only thing that remained after Andarel’s death.
Park Chan-woo continued without hesitation.
“I told you that resurrecting your mother with the Elixir wasn’t where it ended.”
“You did say that, but……”
“Give that Coin to your mother. With it in her possession, the demons of the Abyss won’t be able to take her easily.”
Lee Hyuk-soo’s eyes widened.
“……What kind of object is this?”
“An Escape Coin. With that Coin, you can escape the Abyss.”
“An Escape Coin…… Can it be used here too?”
“Of course. You can use it here right now.”
Hearing Park Chan-woo’s words, Lee Hyuk-soo looked down at the Coin in his hand again.
Andarel, who had received the Coin, had treated Park Chan-woo with utmost deference.
It was undoubtedly no ordinary object.
If simply possessing this could keep one from entering this hellish place — or allow one to escape — then.
Perhaps this Coin was worth even more than the Elixir itself.
“What made you trust me enough to give me a Coin first? I could use it to run right now.”
“Lee Hyuk-soo. You’re just ‘different,’ not selfish.”
…….
Lee Hyuk-soo’s lips pressed shut.
Park Chan-woo’s words had touched something deep inside him.
-Hyuk-soo. You’re a good boy. You’re just a little different from others. They simply don’t understand that.
His mother had always spoken to him this way.
Even after he came home bruised from fights, she had always taken his side.
She was certain he’d never started the trouble first.
“……Tell me what I need to do. I’ll do exactly as you say.”
At last, Lee Hyuk-soo wagered his life.
Having come this far, he would see it through to the end.
‘That’s settled.’
Park Chan-woo nodded.
The preparations were complete.
Now only one thing remained.
‘I just need to awaken as a Magician Class.’
* * *
《You have received a critical blow.》
《You are granted the Indomitable effect for one use.》
At the same moment, Lee Hyuk-soo ran like a madman.
Three seconds of Indomitable. He had to reach Yongsinjangs within that window.
Perhaps after these three seconds passed, he would no longer be alive.
Yet here he was, charging head-on when even fleeing seemed insufficient.
“Slash. Slice. Keep slicing.”
Even with three seconds of invulnerability from Indomitable, simply closing the distance was perilous.
Yongsinjangs wouldn’t stand idle either.
Twelve arms. Long Crescent Halberds gripped in every hand.
Approaching at all was madness.
Yet Lee Hyuk-soo did not hesitate and hurled himself at Yongsinjangs.
-Lee Hyuk-soo. From now on, I will cast a spell upon you.
Park Chan-woo had said so.
He said he was casting a spell—that Lee Hyuk-soo should close in on Yongsinjangs and swing his blade.
But Park Chan-woo had not explained what the spell was.
What was clear, however, was that Park Chan-woo’s entire demeanor had shifted completely when he cast it.
‘A Magician?’
He couldn’t say.
A Seer, he’d claimed—so where had this magic suddenly come from?
But there was no time to question such things.
Lee Hyuk-soo closed in on Yongsinjangs as instructed, then—
《The Indomitable effect has expired!》
The moment the Indomitable effect vanished.
Whoosh!
He swung the Immortal King’s Greatsword.
“Futile, human.”
Yongsinjangs laughed and casually deflected it with one of his Crescent Halberds.
The instant the greatsword and halberd collided.
Boom!
A deafening explosion erupted, piercing the eardrums.
Yet Lee Hyuk-soo emerged unscathed.
Only Yongsinjangs was caught in the blast.
Every vector of the explosion was aimed precisely at him.
As the inferno engulfed him, skin charring and peeling away, Yongsinjangs could only scream.
“Kyaaaaaaagh!”
The pain was unbearable.
Yet he could not comprehend it.
It was because Yongsinjangs had instinctively grasped the source of this explosion.
‘My own Mana. It reflected my attack.’
All the Mana woven into the Immortal King’s Greatsword belonged to Yongsinjangs himself.
The Mana he had poured out ruthlessly for three seconds had been gathered and detonated against him.
‘Reflection? No, Reflection has its limits. Besides, gathering the opponent’s mana and expelling it all at once—that’s impossible!’
The framework was unmistakably Reflection.
But it operated on a different principle than the Reflection that Yongsinjangs understood.
To begin with, Reflection was a kind of defensive barrier concept.
It was one of the foundational spells that mages learned instinctively to protect themselves.
Of course, by now it was an obsolete technique.
The mana cost to reflect an attack consumed twice as much as the original strike.
Moreover, since it was better to learn proper defensive magic than some half-baked Reflection spell, no one bothered to master or use it.
Such a thing.
Some crude magic like that.
……He’d refined it to this degree?
“I don’t know what great mage you are, but you’ll regret helping Andarel!”
Yongsinjangs realized that the great mage was hiding behind the human who had just attacked him.
But those were Yongsinjangs’s final words.
He’d hurled mana at maximum output in a single moment, and now received it all back in full.
Soon after, Yongsinjangs turned to ash and vanished.
《’Yongsinjangs’s’ death has been confirmed.》
《All of the ‘Twelve Divine Generals’ have perished.》
《The ‘First Night Abyss’ will end in 3 minutes.》
“…….”
Lee Hyuk-soo, meanwhile, stood in stunned silence.
He’d done exactly as Park Chan-woo instructed, and Yongsinjangs really had died.
The story about the spell cast on him had been true as well.
That earlier strike and the explosion.
They had nothing whatsoever to do with Lee Hyuk-soo’s own power.
‘……Three seconds really was all it took.’
A chill ran down his spine.
He could barely breathe.
He’d suspected something extraordinary when Park summoned the Grim Reaper to kill the demon.
‘The apex. He’s a monster at the apex.’
What two million humans couldn’t accomplish, he’d done alone in merely three seconds.
Even Yongsinjangs had said it himself.
A great mage.
Perhaps his help hadn’t been needed from the start.
To Lee Hyuk-soo’s mind, this so-called prophet was undoubtedly a grand sorcerer of incomparable caliber.
Clap clap!
It was then.
The sound of applause echoing from somewhere.
The first to reveal himself was Team Lead Kim Byung-han.
“I knew it! From the moment I saw you at the Water-Good Nightclub, I knew you’d cause a stir! I believed in you!”
He approached with false friendliness, laying on flattery thick.
Which confirmed Lee Hyuk-soo’s suspicion that he was indeed human.
Soon after, people who had been hiding all around began emerging one by one.
Clap clap clap clap!
“Yongsinjangs is dead!”
“The hero who killed Yongsinjangs!”
“A hero has been born!”
The crowd surrounded Lee Hyuk-soo in an instant.
A throng impossible to count.
“What’s your name?”
“Where did you get all that equipment?”
“What country are you from?”
A barrage of questions rained down.
Lee Hyuk-soo barely managed to open his mouth.
“I didn’t actually kill——”
“Heh. Such modesty!”
“No one else could even get close. And you cut down that monster in a single stroke!”
In the end, Lee Hyuk-soo couldn’t say another word.
……Strictly speaking, it wasn’t he who had killed Yongsinjangs.
‘Where did he go?’
No matter how much Lee Hyuk-soo looked around, there was no trace of the self-proclaimed prophet.
He knew it instinctively.
The man had left.
He had done what he came to do and vanished quietly into the night.
Something felt incomplete. A hollow ache opened up in his chest.
Their time together had been brief, yet Lee Hyuk-soo would never forget what he had experienced in the Abyss on the First Night.
‘I should have at least asked his name….’
* * *
Park Chan-woo stood alone on an empty street.
He had just confirmed that Yongsinjangs was dead, killed by his own magic.
Slowly, he lifted his gaze to the sky.
To the moon hanging there, he looked up.
“Thank you, Master of the Moon.”
Squelch.
As flesh shifted and moved, the pupil inscribed upon the moon gazed down at Park Chan-woo.
The moon had turned a deep crimson.
Seeing this, Park Chan-woo smiled.
The bloodshot eye held a palpable fury.
“Because of you, I became a magician.”
And so he provoked openly.
At last, he had achieved what he had longed for without cease.
Then, as he slowly called up his status window, it materialized before him.
Affiliation: Earth / Human / Republic of Korea
Name: Park Chan-woo
Age: 27
Sex: Male
Height/Weight: 180cm / 69kg
Level: -98
Strength (1+2)
Vitality (1+2)
Agility (+2)
Intelligence (1+3)
Mana (1+12)
Total Attack Power: 47
Total Defense: 11
Status: Critically Weak, Sickly, Frail, Non-existent, Terminal
Class: Magician (Level 2)
Available Magic: Reflection (Great Magic, Rare)
Remaining Class Level Points: 0
Equipped Items:
World Tree Staff (-98Lv, Eternal)
Demonic Pauldron (-98Lv, Epic)
Demonic Helmet (-98Lv, Epic)
Demonic Armor (-98Lv, Epic)
Demonic Boots (-98Lv, Epic)
Demonic Gauntlets (-98Lv, Epic)
Iron Shield (-98Lv, Rare)
Active Set Effect ‘Demonic Heart’: Considerable Pressure, Intelligence +1
Abyss Items in Possession:
Easter Egg (001), Magician’s Stone (Legendary), Void (Eternal), Coin (2)
Staring at the floating status window, Park Chan-woo clenched his fist.
Just the first day.
With the awakening of the Abyss, he had already obtained a Class.
How long had he regretted taking the path of a magician so late?
Now, at last, he had corrected that regret.
‘In the Abyss, it’s actually harder to obtain an Original Class.’
An ‘Original Class’ referred to Classes bearing basic names like Magician, Swordmaster, or Archer.
In this Abyss, such ‘Original’ nomenclature held the highest tier.
‘Most Classes obtained in the Abyss come with modifiers attached to their names.’
For instance, even among magicians, most bore descriptive qualifiers—”Magician of Fire,” “Magician of Stars”—that modified the base name.
Yet these modifiers ultimately amounted to setting a boundary.
They looked impressive on the surface, but one could only use the power of the words that adorned the name.
A Fire Mage could only learn fire magic, a Star Mage only star magic, and so forth.
Which meant.
‘An Original Mage bearing no modifiers whatsoever stood at the apex.’
Especially among Mages, the value of an Original Class was overwhelming.
To bear no modifying words meant, in other words, the ability to learn ‘anything’.
Not specialized, but versatile across the board.
The possibility of learning more, of reaching further.
Of course, this didn’t mean one could indiscriminately master opposing attributes.
But Park Chan-woo could.
‘The Void. An artifact that enables the learning of magic with opposing attributes.’
Because he possessed it.
The Void eliminated the repulsive force of opposing attributes—a treasure to any Mage, as sacred as the Holy Grail itself.
A stellar beginning.
Better than anyone’s.
Though his Level was catastrophically low, it more than compensated for everything else.
Park Chan-woo shrugged his shoulders, eyeing the remaining time.
‘Never thought there’d be texts for an Original Mage Class in a place like this.’
Texts that pass down an Original Class are extraordinarily rare to acquire.
And yet this one lay beyond the veil.
That was why he’d liquidated every remaining Point after achieving his seventieth consecutive victory to purchase the text for awakening as an Original Mage.
It was all thanks to the Master of the Moon.
That creature truly was generous without reserve.
“See you the next ‘Night’.”
Park Chan-woo grinned, baring his teeth.
The Master of the Moon. His smile carried the resolve to bankrupt that creature as well.
In that instant.
《The Abyss of the First Night has concluded.》
《You participated with 99% Contribution in slaying the Yongsinjangs.》
《You participated with 49.9% Contribution across all of the Twelve Divine Generals.》
《Survival Rate: 86.5%》
《This figure reaches 86.5 times the predicted Survival Rate of 1%.》
《The Creator who screamed rudely has gone bankrupt.》
《The Creator who wished to flee the sun has gone bankrupt.》
《The Creator of the sinister cavern has gone bankrupt.》
《A total of 10 Coins will be distributed according to Contribution ranking and ratio.》
《You obtained 5 Coins.》
《All survivors obtain a Gold Box (★).》
…….
《Your Level has risen.》
《Your Level has risen.》
《You obtained Class Level Point (2).》
《……Extraordinary!》
《No mythic feat shall compare to this singular achievement. As it transcends the predictions and comprehension of all powerful beings, a Black Box is awarded additionally.》
“……A Black Box?”

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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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