My Skeleton Soldier Is Strange - Chapter 20

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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 20
“Three portals are going to spawn?!”
Mullen jabbed Sphinx’s ribs again as he asked. Ye-jin winced and shouted back.
“It’s a new pattern that appeared four days ago! It looks like Sphinx’s final phase desperation attack pattern for level 15 and above!”
‘And you’re telling me this now?!’
“There’s a limit to living up to your nickname, you know? It’s problematic if you only give me strategy hints in bits and pieces.”
“I can hear everything, you know?”
“Well, I meant for you to hear it.”
Meanwhile, the sandstorm gradually subsided. At the same moment, Mullen shouted.
“Northwest!”
As if they hadn’t been fighting at all, Ye-jin’s arrows flew in rapid succession the instant he finished speaking.
―Screech! Bang bang bang!
[How is this possible!]
Sphinx was astounded as he charged toward the portal, his vision obscured by the sandstorm.
The closest portal to Sphinx was in the southeast, and the farthest was in the east.
Yet she had pinpointed which portal he was heading toward in a single shot?
“What good is blocking vision when there’s air current to sense?”
One of the decisive differences between Warlord Online and Evern Online.
In Evern Online, perception extended beyond just sight, smell, and hearing—one could even sense the flow of air itself.
[What are you talking about! You sensed my movements through this sandstorm?]
Of course, such perception existed, but not everyone could sense it. Sphinx found it absurd, but Mullen was resolute.
“You have stone skin, so you can’t feel it.”
It was certainly a discriminatory remark based on skin composition.
‘I… couldn’t feel it either.’
Beside him, Ye-jin kept her mouth shut with the thought of ‘please explain things I can understand.’
Right after, Sphinx and Ye-jin, both wearing flustered expressions before the collapsed portal, locked eyes.
―A nod.
For just a moment, an emotion transcending enemy and ally passed between them.
The instant that brief connection ended, Sphinx charged forward again, and Ye-jin nocked another arrow.
“This time, east!”
Ye-jin’s arrow flew toward the eastern portal, but Sphinx immediately corrected his course away from the east.
‘A human couldn’t possibly use skills consecutively like this!’
Sphinx’s reasoning was sound. Ye-jin was indeed continuously destroying portals with explosive arrows without hesitation, but she was only level 20.
Having just used an evasion skill to dodge Sphinx’s attacks, she didn’t have the mana to chain skills like this.
“That’s not it!”
Realizing this fact, Ye-jin gritted her teeth and fired an arrow at the last remaining portal, but destroying it with a normal arrow was impossible.
“Dercan, position three, position one!”
At that moment, Mullen shouted. Dercan responded flawlessly to the consecutive commands. Position three was clearly a jump.
And position one was a crouch. The instant Dercan lifted into the air, Mullen swung his steel staff with all his might.
―Clang!
“Go, Dercan!”
Jae-beom hurled Dercan forward with all his might, as if swinging a baseball bat to drive a ball.
[Too late!]
Sphinx sneered and lunged toward the remaining portal.
Dercan was fast as he flew through the air, but even as he assessed the situation mid-attack, he calculated that it would take that skeletal warrior considerable time to destroy the portal.
―Master.
In Dercan’s eyes as he soared forward burned absolute faith and loyalty toward his master.
―Thruuust!
In the next instant, Dercan drove his reinforced twin blades deep into Sphinx’s third eye.
The eye that Sphinx had wounded from Ye-jin’s arrow moments before shattered as if it were nothing more than stone, pierced clean through in a single thrust.
[…!]
Wracked by excruciating agony, Sphinx’s body went rigid and brittle. Blood poured from the third eye, and the creature froze in place, unable to move even a fraction.
Hairline fractures began spreading across Sphinx’s entire form. The fine cracks deepened into gashes, and the gashes transformed into massive fissures.
―Kuuung… Ku-ku-kung!
Soon, the colossal body of Sphinx shattered into countless pieces.
The sound of the massive frame trembling and collapsing echoed throughout the entire tomb. Enormous stone fragments from Sphinx’s body scattered in all directions.
―Crash! Crash!
Heavy stone shards struck the ground, gouging deep craters. Sand poured from the fractured stone, and in an instant, the surrounding air filled with a thick haze of dust.
―Whoooosh!
A violent sandstorm swept through the chamber. Within the suffocating cloud so dense it obscured all vision, Sphinx’s very form dissolved into nothingness.
[Ahhh… this is my finest hour….]
A faint murmur echoed from within the dust. The voice grew quieter, dimmer, until it faded away entirely.
[You have defeated the Ancient Guardian, Sphinx.]
As the experience-related message appeared, Jae-beom tilted his head in confusion.
‘Ancient Guardian? The guide said it was just Guardian… Ah, so the title changes based on level.’
Sphinx’s final murmur and the message itself suggested this was likely the strongest variant of Sphinx.
―Shhhhaaaa….
The sand dust began to settle gradually. As the haze cleared, only an enormous pile of rubble remained where Sphinx had stood.
―Whiiiing….
When the sand dust and storm finally subsided.
“L-look at that!”
Ye-jin spotted something glowing crimson between the stone fragments. It was Sphinx’s pierced third eye, rolling out from between the rocks.
Jae-beom approached slowly and picked up the third eye in his hand. The pupil continued to emit a mysterious radiance across his palm.
[You have obtained the Eye of Discernment.]
[An eyeball possessing the power of ???.]
[Detailed information is unavailable at this time. Please consult a high-ranking mage.]
The System Message gleamed with golden light, announcing its presence. Yet Jae-beom’s expression remained unmoved.
‘This is just the standard reward.’
To be precise, it was an item that dropped unconditionally when defeating a Sphinx of a certain level or higher, but since he had already formed a party with Ye-jin, this was essentially just a basic drop item.
It was also an item he absolutely had to obtain for Mullen’s Quest.
―Thud!
That was when Dercan approached Jae-beom with heavy, deliberate steps, his twin blades still stained with Sphinx’s blood clutched firmly in his hands.
―Master.
Pride resonated in his voice—the pride of having protected his master. Now that I looked closer, Dercan’s entire body was trembling on the verge of dissolution. Yet even in that state, he had completed my command.
“Yes… you’ve done well.”
I nodded and patted Dercan’s shoulder.
“Ugh… ah….”
That was when it happened.
A pained groan echoed from the corner where Ye-jin lay.
“I barely made it. If I hadn’t had that health potion, I would’ve really died….”
Dercan wasn’t the only one who’d come close to death. Though Ye-jin had dodged the direct hit, she’d been exposed to Sphinx’s attack at close range and was nearly finished.
Fortunately, since this was just a game, Ye-jin looked almost unscathed after using an intermediate potion—save for her tattered clothing.
“You worked hard as well, Ye-jin.”
I stood up and offered her a light word of thanks.
“So it was the Eye of Insight? Were there no other drop items besides that?”
“Unfortunately not.”
“Then you should take that one.”
I thought to myself, ‘Does she still see me as a newbie she’s raising?’ but fortunately, that wasn’t the case.
“I worked hard too, but your contribution to this boss fight was higher. Instead, let’s split whatever comes from the treasure chest.”
“A treasure chest? I heard there wasn’t one… could it be?”
If rewards were added in the patch four days ago, that would be crossing the line even for a game that changes so much with each update.
A treasure chest meant the rewards themselves had fundamentally changed.
“Ah, this wasn’t added by the patch. Just think of it as classified information.”
“I see. Thank you.”
As I said this, I mentally raised Ye-jin’s “newbie-raising tendency” by about 280 points.
‘She could’ve kept it all to herself without telling me, but she’s insisting on sharing it…?’
Even though my contribution to defeating Sphinx was significant, the convention in such cases was usually to give compensation equivalent to Ye-jin’s contribution separately.
But instead of taking money, she was offering to split the additional rewards.
I couldn’t fathom how she still treated me like a newbie, or how genuinely committed she was to raising one.
Tap!
“Hmm. Let’s see….”
Clueless Ye-jin (Newbie-raising tendency: 320) confidently approached the Boss Chamber’s wall.
With her recovered mana, Ye-jin even used the ‘Hawk’s Eye’ skill to meticulously examine the wall surface.
“This pattern was the key….”
Finally, as if she’d found something, Ye-jin felt along the wall’s crevices, concentrating on the sensation at her fingertips before crying out.
“Found it!”
Ye-jin shouted brightly and pulled something with force, and something began to change.
―Uuuung….
The tightly sealed wall slowly began to move. Countless bricks, including the wall’s patterns, reassembled themselves, and soon a staircase came into view. The stairs, untouched by human footsteps for a long time, emanated an eerie silence.
“The passage must have reset too. Just by its appearance, it looks like no one’s visited in at least several hundred years.”
“It would be problematic if the rewards disappeared permanently after being obtained once.”
I’d heard that some rewards worked that way, but it seemed Sphinx’s Tomb didn’t fall into that category.
“Follow me.”
Ye-jin led the way down the stairs without bothering to hide her anticipation. Sphinx’s level was higher than when Ye-jin had cleared it, and fewer people had defeated it, so there was every reason to be excited.
‘A treasure chest.’
Mullen’s expression remained unchanged, but he felt the same anticipation. At least this would yield the best drop item they’d seen so far.
* * *
“Are we still far away?”
“Just a bit further.”
As the two walked through the darkness, a spacious chamber finally came into view. At the sight, Mullen’s expression darkened slightly.
“Not exactly a pleasant sight.”
Several mummies lay in sarcophagi within the chamber, resting in silent slumber. For some reason, the lids weren’t covering the sarcophagi, leaving the mummies fully exposed.
While not grotesquely brutal, their forms lying motionless in the darkness as if waiting for something created a subtle sense of dread.
The sarcophagi were arranged in a line, and at the far end sat a small box ornately decorated in gold.
“As expected, it’s a different box than last time.”
Ye-jin started to stride forward but turned back to look at Dercan.
“Is there a trap on the box?”
“There wasn’t one last time… but since the box has changed too.”
“Right, well, there’s no harm in being careful. Dercan.”
―Master.
Just as Dercan was about to confidently step forward, Mullen briefly stopped him.
“Leave the twin blades behind.”
―…Understood.
After a brief silence, Dercan nodded and strode forward to open the box.
“Wow.”
The box was filled with brilliant gemstones. Diamonds, rubies, sapphires… The box was small but contained only the finest items.
‘So original gems appear from the mid-game onwards. The highest-tier reward in an early-stage area is just real-world gemstones.’
As Mullen nodded after completing his analysis, Ye-jin’s expression seemed somewhat disappointed.
“The quantity is definitely… more than last time. Yes, there’s definitely more.”
“This is…”
Just as Mullen noticed something and was about to speak.
[You have discovered a treasure chest!]
[You have obtained numerous precious gemstones including ancient rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds!]
[The total value of the gemstones is equivalent to 50,000 Gold!]
[As a first-clear bonus for the highest difficulty, you receive an additional reward!]
[A most precious stone beneath the box begins to shine!]
Along with the system message, something began to emerge from beneath the 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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