S-Classes That I Raised to Devour - Chapter 44

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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 44. There Are No Bad Yakshas (2)
Kim Yeoul drew inspiration from Chae Mujin’s words.
She conjured seven Fireballs and hurled them before the HT Golem even arrived.
The plan was to transform each Fireball into a Flame Mine once they reached the proper positions.
“Ugh!”
But understanding something in the mind was not the same as the body obeying.
Converting the Fireballs into Flame Mines succeeded for only two out of the seven.
She’d pushed her imagination, trying to bluff her way through.
…Chae Mujin made it sound deceptively simple, but turning imagination into reality was hardly something anyone could manage.
Boom!
Lucky for her, the HT Golem slammed into one of the Flame Mines and they won the fight, but Kim Yeoul gasped for breath.
‘I can’t… breathe…’
She clutched her chest and collapsed. It felt as though every organ in her body was twisted and contorted.
Then Chae Mujin approached, grasped her wrist, and spoke.
“That’s Mana Exhaustion. You get it when you burn through all your mana at once. There’s training to adapt to it, but it’s easier just to make a habit of always keeping one point of mana in reserve.”
Using Clear Mirror Water and Light of Healing, Kim Yeoul barely recovered her body and gasped for air.
It had lasted barely three seconds, yet her whole body was drenched in sweat.
Even the legs that had steadied her so far had gone weak, and she could barely stand.
“Don’t force yourself up. Relax. Now listen. When you tried to convert those Fireballs into Flame Mines—you were trying to change them all at once, weren’t you?”
Kim Yeoul’s eyes widened. He hadn’t asked her intentions, yet Chae Mujin spoke as if he knew everything.
“Some skills come with descriptions like ‘multiple targets’ or ‘in the designated area.’ With skills like those, you don’t need to worry—they’ll affect multiple targets regardless of your intent.”
“But if there’s no such description, the caster has to designate each target manually. Now, Yeoul—when you count from one to ten, can you say all of it at once?”
“That’s why your attempt failed. So how do you succeed? I want your answer.”
Kim Yeoul wasn’t foolish enough to need much time thinking this through.
“You use the skill while watching each one individually.”
“That way’s too slow. You’d have to watch each Fireball one by one. The answer is to assign numbers from the start. Number each Fireball. If there are eight, you mark them one through eight. Then you think: I’ll transform Fireball Number One into a Flame Mine.”
“…!”
“You could even add variations. Instead of starting at Number One, begin with Number Three, then Number Five, Number Eight—”
“Ah…!”
Kim Yeoul looked up at Chae Mujin. How could he think of something so ingenious—a use of a skill that even the one who possessed it had never imagined?
She’d heard that Skill Researchers existed as a profession, but even they could hardly devise such applications on the spot.
“Can you stand?”
“Yes, I’m fine now.”
“You’ve used all your mana, so let’s head down to a lower floor and rest.”
Just as Kim Yeoul, whose body felt impossibly heavy, began to nod—
“…Manager. Do you remember?”
“Remember what?”
Kim Yeoul hesitated for a moment, then spoke with resolve.
“When you told me to try talking with Yaksha.”
* * *
He hadn’t forgotten, but having Yaksha’s name pop up right now was certainly unexpected.
“You succeeded?”
“Yes…but not now. It was during the group training retreat. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you beforehand. I wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination or if we were actually communicating.”
“It’s fine, keep going.”
“Until now, Yaksha only said things like wanting to eat something, or asking if I could fight instead. Just that much. It never did anything to my body. But now… it’s thrashing about intensely.”
“Thrashing about? Is it trying to take over your body?”
He seized her wrist.
He had no guarantee it would work, but he intended to suppress Yaksha using the inner force of Clear Mirror Water.
“That’s…not it, I think. Rather than trying to seize my body, it’s more like…insisting? I guess you could say it wants to fight itself.”
“It wants to fight?”
“When we fought the Yeti, Yaksha did say it wanted to come out, but it was never this aggressive about it.”
“Hmm…”
As he listened, a strange feeling took root. What was the nature of this peculiar sensation?
Looking into Kim Yeoul’s eyes, he understood.
Compassion.
Kim Yeoul pitied Yaksha.
It wasn’t an incomprehensible emotion. Though Yaksha killed indiscriminately, it had ultimately protected Kim Yeoul, had it not?
So from her perspective, there was no reason to hate Yaksha.
‘I don’t hate Yaksha either. At least not until now.’
It was a Savage—a wild being that had lived by instinct in a world of survival of the fittest. One could not fault it for murder.
Though that didn’t justify indiscriminate killing.
“Yeoul, do you want to let Yaksha use your body?”
“I’m afraid, but…it seems too sad to keep Yaksha locked away in my heart forever.”
“What if Yaksha doesn’t return your body?”
“That’s absolutely impossible.”
Her eyes held unwavering conviction.
Why? How?
Yet he felt an unspoken trust that could not be articulated clearly.
“Very well, I’ll trust you. Can you talk to Yaksha right now?”
“Yes. If you speak, Yaksha can hear you too.”
“Yaksha. We can be friends if you promise three things. What do you say?”
“Three is too many, it says.”
“Fine, two then. Don’t attack anyone randomly. Return her body immediately when I come for Yeoul.”
“Why should it need your permission to fight? it asks.”
Violence is wrong, order collapses—such arguments held no meaning.
There was a more concise, far more compelling reason.
“Because it’s for Yeoul.”
I want to believe it. I want to believe Yaksha is not merely Yeoul’s violent inner nature, but a guardian angel watching over her well-being.
If Yaksha truly is such a being, then my words—”for Yeoul”—would not be so easily dismissed.
“…It says it will try.”
“I’m ready.”
“Don’t worry so much. Yaksha turned out to be not nearly as bad as I thought.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m ready, so tell it to come whenever.”
Unlike Yeoul, I’m not letting Yaksha out of compassion.
‘Things are different now.’
In just one month, I’ve reached Level 98 and acquired skills from multiple classes.
I’m permitting Yaksha’s release because I’m confident I can stop it if it runs wild.
“See you later, Manager.”
Yeoul removed her glasses and placed them in her pocket.
Her body transformed instantly. Her frizzy hair straightened and lengthened, and her frame grew by a factor of one and a half.
The greatest change was in the quality of her mana.
The warm, hearthlike mana that Kim Yeoul had been emitting moments before transformed instantly into a sharp, cutting weapon that would rend everything asunder.
“Haa…hahahaha!”
With each breath the figure released, the air itself trembled.
“Commencing the two-hundred-thirtieth murder test.”
An HT Golem emerged from the deep shadows.
But there was no fear. It looked almost cute now, compared to the Yaksha standing before him.
Crash!
In the blink of an eye, the Yaksha and the HT Golem vanished into the darkness.
* * *
The impact was tremendous, but Chae Mujin knew the HT Golem hadn’t been destroyed. If anything, its fist would be the one shattered.
‘This dungeon rejects physical damage dealers.’
The golems’ bodies were composed of Amantir, a metal from another dimension, granting them extraordinarily high physical defense.
In exchange, their magical defense was only around Level 100—making it virtually a holy ground for magic dealers.
Crack! Bang!
Screech!
The crushing sounds echoing from the darkness seemed less like machinery breaking and more like a person shattering.
‘I need to stop this before Yeoul’s body gets damaged.’
Not out of concern for Yaksha, but for Yeoul’s sake, he walked into the darkness.
Each time the broken lights flickered, he caught glimpses of Yaksha’s back.
Drip, drip.
He heard the sound of droplets first, and drawing closer, he saw droplets of blood falling from its fist.
“I’ll treat those wounds. Give me your hand.”
The moment he reached out to grasp it—dissonance struck him.
‘Where did the HT Golem go?’
He shouldn’t have been able to approach so casually. The fight should still be raging.
Yet he approached unremarkably. Because there was nothing around him—he failed to notice how strange it was to feel ‘safe because everything is fine.’
Only then did his senses sharpen, and he perceived it.
The acrid smell of gasoline you’d catch at a Gas Station, the scattered remnants of a golem broken into fragments…
What stained Yaksha’s fist was not its own blood.
It was golem blood—oil.
Yaksha wiped its hand on his sleeve and spoke.
“Treatment is something only the weak receive.”
Whoosh!
Yaksha launched toward another HT Golem.
Having buffed Kim Yeoul, Yaksha, who shared the same body, would benefit from those buffs as well. But that speed couldn’t be produced by my buffs alone.
“Hahaha! This toy is good! It doesn’t break so easily!”
Until now, it had been Kim Yeoul’s task to overcome the HT Golems.
But now the roles had reversed.
The HT Golems struggled to overcome Yaksha, but nothing they did could stop it.
Power, speed, unpredictability—Yaksha surpassed them in every dimension.
Screech, thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
Each time the HT Golem slashed at Yaksha, dozens of fists pierced the golem’s entire body.
‘This is a completely different level from the Yaksha I last saw in the Goblin Dungeon.’
That should have been impossible. As far as Chae Mujin knew, this was Yaksha’s first emergence since then.
It couldn’t have grown. It couldn’t have trained.
Yet the Yaksha before him, improved in every way, sent shivers racing across Chae Mujin’s skin with its overwhelming presence.
To ascertain the truth, Chae Mujin activated Assessment for the first time in a while.
Assessment target: Kim Yeoul
Gratitude: 782,830
[Assessment List]
Traits:
‣Heavenly Dragon Eight Yaksha (S)―1,000,000 [Cannot Assess]
‣Adaptive Lethal System (S)―1,000,000 [Cannot Assess]
Skills:
‣Crimson Gauntlet (S)―1,000,000 [Cannot Assess]
“What…?!”
Yaksha had gained an additional trait.
And it was S-rank!
‘Does it share experience with Kim Yeoul?’
There was no other explanation. Just as Kim Yeoul had reached Level 50 and learned a new skill, Yaksha too had reached Level 50 and acquired a new trait.
But was such cruel fortune possible? The original owner, Kim Yeoul, had learned a C-rank skill, yet Yaksha had acquired an S-rank one. And that skill was perfectly tailored for Yaksha alone.
「Trait―Adaptive Lethal System (S)」
•On close-range attacks, you attack the target with the type against which it is most vulnerable.
Simple in description, yet its destructive power was staggering.
No creature in this world is strong against all types. Put simply: if physical defense is high, magical defense is low.
Of course, there are cases where both are high, but then they’re weak to specific elemental attacks.
Thus Hunters select monsters to hunt whose weaknesses align with their arsenal.
Just as physical damage dealers don’t hunt HT Golems, whose physical defense is extraordinarily high.
But with Adaptive Lethal System, none of that mattered.
High physical defense or high magical defense—any attack became whatever type the target was most vulnerable to!
For the HT Golem, it was most vulnerable to Dark Attribute, so all of Yaksha’s attacks had transformed into Dark Attribute strikes.
‘No wonder it shattered so completely.’
With Dark Attribute’s decomposing nature, the HT Golem could barely retain a recognizable form.
“It’s become an absurdly overpowered monster.”
With just the S-rank skills it originally possessed—”Heavenly Dragon Eight Yaksha” and “Crimson Gauntlet”—it was already a figure of Cheonoechen’s caliber.
And now an S-rank skill had been added on top of that.
‘The HT Golems are pitiful by comparison.’
It took less than an hour to smash every HT Golem on the 9th Floor.
In the process, Chae Mujin discovered another fact.
‘Just as personality changes alter physique, so too does mana change.’
In other words, even if Kim Yeoul’s mana was depleted and Yaksha took over, Yaksha’s mana remained intact. They weren’t a shared resource.
Chae Mujin felt instinctive fear toward Yaksha. But he felt no shame in it. Just as it’s no shame to feel heat when facing fire.
‘An unexpected development…but at this level, it’s still comprehensible.’
He thought it would end as merely an incident.
Flash!
The dimly lit 9th Floor suddenly brightened, and before the automated announcement could play—
[Completion of the nine-hundred-ninety-ninth and final test: Physical Resistance Assessment.]
[Unsealing of Giant-class Golem, SQ.]
[Beginning invasion of dimensional realm: Earth.]

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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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