Level -99 Archmage - Chapter 31

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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 31. Fever Time
Han Shin had been born with an extraordinary eye for judging people.
He possessed an innate talent, especially when it came to assessing an opponent’s strength.
This talent had manifested as Shin-an upon his Awakening, and through the Shin-an, Han Shin could grasp his opponent’s Pure Stats at a single glance.
Of course, there was a constraint—it only worked on those below his own Level.
‘All stats at 1?’
The numbers were almost impossible to believe.
Park Chan-woo’s every Pure Stat was a mere 1.
Even elderly patients who shuffled about complaining all day were better off than this.
Han Shin wondered if newborns fresh from the womb could possibly have such numbers.
For a grown adult, the figure was far too small.
Suspecting he’d misread something, Han Shin studied Park Chan-woo’s complexion more closely.
‘…A critical patient.’
His face was pallid, drained of all color.
Cracked lips, flaking skin, deep shadows beneath his eyes, clouded pupils, sunken cheeks—after taking stock of every detail, Han Shin had to admit the truth.
Park Chan-woo’s condition was indistinguishable from that of a terminal patient.
This was someone who should have been lying in an ICU with a respirator, not walking around outside.
According to what Han Shin had observed through Shin-an, most of those with unusually low stats were critical cases.
They’d mistaken their Awakening for a cure and ventured out, only to die violent deaths.
This man was surely of that breed.
‘No, he’s definitely not the one.’
Han Shin was hunting for someone who had stolen Soo-shin’s allotment and killed him.
That person would either be higher Level, or possess stats with impossible ratios.
An “Irregular” operating on an entirely different plane.
And yet…
‘…Nothing.’
He’d checked exactly 627 people’s stats.
But there was no individual or group who could have accomplished the “Soo-shin hunt.”
Had he missed someone?
It had taken roughly thirty seconds to verify all 627 people around the Admiral Yi Sun-sin Statue.
No one had slipped away during that time.
He possessed Dynamic Visual Acuity superior to any beast, and senses that transcended the ordinary.
The claim that he “possessed humanity’s greatest talent” was no exaggeration.
Yet he had missed something.
If that person was among these crowds, there was no way he could fail to notice.
Even without Shin-an—the skill his talent had bloomed into—no one could deceive Han Shin’s eyes.
But no matter how many times he looked around, there was no one who appeared capable of hunting Soo-shin.
Even Lee Hyeok-su, whom Han Shin had his eye on, wouldn’t be ready yet. Besides, wasn’t Lee Hyeok-su with Soo-shin the entire time in the Soo-shin Abyss?
…Who could it be?
Just who…
“I’m alive! Actually alive!”
“Damn. I can’t even bring myself to enter other dungeons.”
“Please, someone take this person to the hospital!”
The crowd began to disperse, one by one.
Han Shin’s urgency deepened.
Brilliant as he was, his body was still only one.
Meanwhile, the crowd was scattering in dozens of directions.
Han Shin’s eyes swept relentlessly across the scene.
He knew well that if the culprit was among them, this was the moment—any later and they would be nearly impossible to find.
Yet still, Park Chan-woo remained beneath his notice.
‘As expected. He doesn’t recognize me.’
Park Chan-woo turned away.
Slowly. Unhurriedly.
He moved with the same gait as always.
This was his first encounter with Han Shin since his Regression.
The monster who had first achieved Level 99 in all of humanity.
Moreover, Han Shin had reached Level 99 three years faster than the second person to achieve it.
Of course, that was only what was publicly known.
In truth, it had likely been even faster.
A truly wondrous prodigy whose growth had become the exemplar of all mankind.
Han Shin was once the symbol of humanity’s hope.
Park Chan-woo found himself tense in the presence of that same Han Shin.
The man would be obsessed with hunting down whoever had killed his confidant and Soo-shin.
With Han Shin’s abilities, such a task was far from impossible.
The Shin-an.
A skill so broken it could discern everything about an opponent.
Through it, Han Shin could extract information on all things.
People even said he could “peek at someone’s status window”—so thoroughly, so precisely did he see.
Perhaps that was why.
Standing before Han Shin always felt like being stripped bare.
But just now, Han Shin’s gaze had slipped past him.
‘His rank must still be too low to grasp everything.’
Every skill had a rank.
No skill came into existence as a universal tool from the start.
Even if someone possessed talent envied by the gods and that talent transformed into a skill, without raising their class level and advancing the skill’s rank, it would be subject to restrictions—its range would narrow, or its efficiency would plummet catastrophically.
At best, he’d have confirmed only the Pure Stats.
As evidence of this, Han Shin had examined Park Chan-woo’s status and immediately struck him from the list of suspects.
‘Still despises the weak, doesn’t he—Han Shin.’
You could tell by looking into his eyes.
That particular gaze, the way he looked down on the powerless.
It flickered across Park Chan-woo now.
He’d been marked as a pitiful weakling, utterly pathetic.
Without the mask yet in place, it was unmistakably clear.
With that, all the confirmations were complete.
‘Three things discovered.’
First: Han Shin’s contractor is not the Great Nine Lords, but Aheta, the Moon Lord.
Second: Even Aheta cannot recognize Park Chan-woo, who possesses Non-existence. If he had, he would’ve tipped off Han Shin somehow.
Third: Han Shin knows nothing. Nothing of the fact that Park Chan-woo is the thief who robbed the Man-hyeol Seondan and murdered Soo-shin. Not even a shred of suspicion.
‘The urge to kill him right now burns as hot as a chimney…….’
He nearly scowled at the sight of Han Shin’s face.
His desire to kill the man was genuine, after all.
But Aheta stood behind him.
The moment Park Chan-woo killed Han Shin, Aheta would certainly exact vengeance.
‘Aheta is the most troublesome of all the Creators.’
Cruel and vicious by default.
He toys with his opponents thoroughly.
He tramples honor, mocks them, inflicts suffering worse than death itself—and then, when they beg to be killed, he transforms them into Liches, enslaving them for eternity.
Among all Creators, Aheta was the most sinister.
And that Aheta had created an Avatar.
‘Han Shin. The man clearly adores him intensely.’
For now, Park Chan-woo couldn’t kill Han Shin.
But that was all right.
Once he grew strong enough that the bastard couldn’t touch him, that would be enough.
If he accumulated enough power to render Han Shin beneath his notice, or if he could bankrupt Aheta in the Night Abyss…….
That day would be Han Shin’s funeral.
Park Chan-woo checked his remaining buff time and smiled.
The goal had been to capture Soo-shin in the Soo-shin Abyss.
But now that he had captured Soo-shin, his goal had changed.
Larger. More ambitious.
‘Clear every dungeon in South Korea.’
* * *
At the moment the Soo-shin Abyss was cleared.
South Korea had achieved a combined 2,200 points.
“We can definitely pull this off, can’t we?”
“Right? It’s only been one day, after all.”
“Easier than I thought?”
Four days since the Abyss began.
For the first time, relief crossed the faces of people who had been thrown into chaos by the sudden emergence of dungeons.
If they could just raise 2,800 points over the next three days, South Korea would be safe.
People believed it could be accomplished easily enough if the strong simply stepped forward and led by example.
…And then, twenty-four hours later.
People realized something was terribly wrong.
“What? Still only 2,700 points?”
“Another full day has passed and we’ve only gained 500 points?”
“What’s happening?”
The score had stopped climbing.
Even when it did rise, it crept forward in miserable increments.
Lulled by complacency, convinced that someone else would clear the dungeon for them, nobody moved.
Of course, deeper reasons lurked beneath the surface.
The leaders who should have rallied people had vanished.
Take Yoo Han-seop of the Yeomyeong Gyowoehoe, for example.
He’d been the first to step forward, the one who’d organized the collective effort—and he was dead.
The Avatar War that had erupted in the Soo-shin Abyss had claimed many skilled Avatars, and those who’d survived had no desire to expose themselves to danger again.
Most importantly.
Han Shin had gone quiet.
…A society where no one stepped up.
If people didn’t challenge the dungeon, all that remained was the Invasion Abyss spreading across all of South Korea.
Even that 500-point gain over the past day was entirely Lee Hyeok-su’s doing.
“Already the third day…….”
“44 hours left.”
“Somebody do something!”
People shifted blame to one another.
Everyone was too busy watching for signs of disapproval.
When forty hours remained.
A new message flashed before everyone’s eyes.
《Ding-dong~♬》
《40 hours remaining!》
《South Korea’s current score: 3,000 points.》
《In 40 hours, the Invasion Abyss will open across all of South Korea.》
《Estimated casualties: 1,755,000.》
《Margin of error: approximately 5%.》
《Once the Invasion Abyss begins, there will be nowhere to hide.》
《Whether in the depths of the ocean, beneath the earth, or high in the sky, the monsters will hunt you down and slaughter you.》
《Furthermore, it will be impossible to leave the territory until the Invasion Abyss ends.》
《There is only one way to survive.》
《Clear the dungeon and achieve 5,000 points!》
As if to spur on the hesitant.
The message delivered both warning and dread in equal measure.
In the end, it was the military that moved first.
Massive numbers of soldiers led the charge into the dungeon.
《20 hours remaining!》
《South Korea’s current score: 3,700 points.》
But it wasn’t enough.
Reaching 5,000 points within the time limit seemed impossible.
Clearing a dungeon couldn’t be accomplished with numbers alone.
What good were bullets against creatures immune to conventional weapons?
The monsters of the Abyss could only be slain with weapons forged in the Abyss itself.
《10 hours remaining!》
《South Korea’s current score: 4,300 points.》
As time wore on, the pace of point acquisition slowed.
Even those who’d pushed hard from the beginning were growing weary.
“Ah…….”
“Why are you hesitating? Go in! Go in already!”
“If this keeps up, we’ll all die!”
Desperation crept into people’s hearts.
“Easy for you to say! Then why don’t you go in yourself?”
“The military failed—how are civilians supposed to succeed?”
As more people grew aggressive and demanding, others began to push back.
In the real world, on social media, across news outlets, a war of words began to rage.
And at that very moment.
‘I can’t move any further.’
Inside the dungeon, Lee Hyeok-su hauled himself to his feet.
He’d been methodically clearing the dungeon for days now.
Three days straight without a moment of sleep.
Driven by a single purpose—protecting his mother—he’d cut down monster after monster.
But Lee Hyeok-su was human, and humans needed rest.
Without it, the body simply gave out.
He’d managed to accumulate over 800 points on his own, but pushing beyond this was impossible.
The moment he forced himself upright, his legs buckled and he collapsed back to the ground.
There was no strength left in them—he couldn’t move even if he wanted to.
Lee Hyeok-su bit down on his lip.
Level 11 now.
Even after surpassing his limit through his first Awakening, three days of non-stop dungeon conquest without so much as a wink of sleep had proved nearly impossible.
‘Is this where it ends?’
He exhaled deeply.
The breath had barely left his lungs when—
Ding!
《Exert yourselves! At this rate, you will not achieve 5,000 points.》
《Success probability: below 1%.》
《To bolster your resolve, the Creators have prepared a special proposal.》
《Fever Time!》
《Dungeon clear rewards will double.》
《Entry to the dungeon will become easier.》
《The Demon Merchant will appear!》
《The Demon Merchant is an entity that trades various forms of value for goods from the Abyss.》
《In exchange, a random 20% of humans who have never entered a dungeon before will be forcibly sent into the Random Dungeon.》
《Do you accept this proposal?》
《If a majority consents, Fever Time will commence.》
…….
…….
《Congratulations.》
《76.1% have consented!》

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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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