S-Classes That I Raised to Devour - Chapter 50

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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 50. Knowing Alone Is Not Enough (1)
Twin tails in a soft pale pink, as though made by pouring strawberry milk. A dress ornate with lace and frills. An appearance that looked about high school age.
That girl was the Magical Girl pierced a thousand times. A Named-rank Boss Monster—a creature that could only be cleared with at least ten A-rank Hunters mobilized.
Lee Min-ji rubbed her eyes. She’d heard rumors, but this was her first time seeing it in person. It didn’t feel real.
A girl smaller and more delicate than herself was a Lord-rank Boss Monster. The Heart Magic Wand she held as a weapon looked like candy—one tap and it seemed it would snap.
“But how did you know the Magical Girl was here?”
The Magical Girl was always monitored by an officially certified Hunter at her side, twenty-four hours a day. Yet now she stood alone in a desolate barley field, staring blankly into space.
Had the Hunter Bureau granted the Magical Girl freedom? Even if they had, how would Chae Mu-jin, a mere civilian, have known her exact location?
“Min-ji. From here on, you’ll ask me many questions. But I forbid you to ask ‘How did you know?'”
“If you’d just tell me the reason you can’t say, I could accept it.”
“Don’t break the flow like that. The Magical Girl is right in front of us—aren’t you focused?”
The swift, cutting reproof caught Min-ji off guard.
“Remember—you’re not following me around just to satisfy curiosity.”
After that final rebuke, Chae Mu-jin picked up the bag he’d prepared and approached the Magical Girl.
Though the Magical Girl felt his footsteps and presence, she did not turn her head. She simply stared blankly toward the horizon.
“Magical Girl.”
Even called by name from beside her, she showed no reaction.
‘Her consciousness has already gone somewhere else.’
He knelt on one knee and opened the canvas bag.
Watching from a distance, Min-ji wondered what would come out of that bag.
Cruel torture implements? Or perhaps some item that would make conversation with the Magical Girl possible?
Whoosh.
What emerged from the bag was a doll. An ordinary Bear Doll. He held it out to the Magical Girl.
The Magical Girl kept her gaze fixed straight ahead while her hand reached out to grasp the Bear Doll, then pulled it close to her chest.
“Magical Girl.”
Chae Mu-jin called again. The Magical Girl’s eyes trembled slightly.
He took another item from the bag. This time, Candy.
She received the Candy just as before, but the Magical Girl’s dull eyes did not return to focus.
This much was known even to the Hunter Bureau, which had already tried and failed with this approach.
After that came tens of thousands of attempts, hundreds of millions spent in experiments trying to awaken the Magical Girl’s spirit—all failures.
But the moment Chae Mu-jin withdrew the third object, the Magical Girl’s nose twitched and her head turned.
“Barley…….”
The Magical Girl opened her mouth for the first time.
* * *
Freshly baked Barley Bread possessed a mysterious power.
The aroma of that fist-sized loaf, baked in a small hearth, spread across the entire kingdom.
Only then did everyone smile. The man who had lost his wife and daughter. The soldier who had lost his limbs to war.
The Magical Girl loved barley for that reason. Her happiness was watching the barley ripen across the wide field.
When the barley finally ripened fully and swayed in the wind, she fell into the delusion that everything would be all right.
“What are you doing here!”
Then someone suddenly seized me and began to run. I wanted to watch the barley a little longer.
I could hear the heartbeat of the person holding me. Thump-thump, thump-thump. If I listened closely, the same sound came from outside as well.
Who was I again? Why was I cradled in this person’s arms? The mouth-watering aroma of Barley Bread grew faint. What replaced it was the smell of iron.
Thump-thump, thump-thump.
The sound of blood and steel calling to me…….
“Magical Girl.”
“…Yes, I am the Magical Girl. Your hope and your miracle.”
Chae Mu-jin stared intently into the Magical Girl’s eyes. Life had returned, yet her gaze still looked toward a distant place.
“I have a favor to ask.”
“Tell me. Another monster has appeared?”
“No monster. Instead, I’ve brought a girl to fight the monster.”
Led by his gesture, Min-ji approached awkwardly and stood before the Magical Girl.
The Magical Girl looked at Min-ji.
“The girl must not fight monsters. Go home. I will handle the monster.”
The Hunter Bureau had also strived ceaselessly to learn something from the Magical Girl.
But she had never taught anyone her techniques.
Yet this time too, Chae Mu-jin skillfully exploited the Magical Girl’s weakness.
“This girl, like you, has lost her family. To a monster.”
“I will take revenge in her place.”
“It is Bahamut.”
“…He cannot be defeated.”
The Magical Girl knew Bahamut. At the mere mention of his name, her head hung low.
“Is Bahamut stronger than you?”
“Yes.”
“Then if I cannot defeat you, I cannot defeat Bahamut either.”
“That’s right.”
“Then I must first defeat you before I can hope to fight Bahamut.”
…….
“Can you help me defeat you?”
Min-ji wondered what kind of conversation this was. They were both speaking Korean, yet she couldn’t comprehend any of it.
The Magical Girl looked between Chae Mu-jin and Min-ji in turn, then spoke.
“How can I help?”
“Fight this girl. However, you must not kill her.”
“I do not kill girls.”
“Good. We’ll begin at once.”
At the words “at once,” Min-ji jumped in surprise. She wasn’t mentally prepared yet.
As proof, she hadn’t even drawn her weapon. But the Magical Girl raised her Heart Magic Wand high.
Whoooosh.
The air trembled once. No—it was crushed. As if a massive weight had suddenly appeared.
It was no illusion. The Heart Magic Wand transformed. A thorny shaft, and the head took the form of a Hammer shaped like a goddess in prayer.
The problem was its length and size.
The Hammer held in one hand by the Magical Girl, who stood barely 150 centimeters, stretched three meters long, and the goddess in prayer at the head began to weep tears of blood.
As the tears of blood soaked the entire Hammer, Spectral Energy froze the very space around it.
……!
This was the Named-rank Boss Monster’s combat mode—the Magical Girl’s true form. Min-ji found herself, without thinking, pressing both knees to the ground and bowing her head.
It was not a decision of the mind.
Her body reacted first. Like a mouse that could not even breathe before the gaping jaws of a massive predator, overcome by the biological surrender inscribed deep in the spine.
Named-rank. It was no calamity that mere humans could face standing upright. An overwhelmingly powerful opponent. A situation with no escape—the best choice for survival.
To flatten oneself and beg for life. To plead for mercy from the enemy. Just as Min-ji did now.
Then Chae Mu-jin’s voice thundered out.
“Rise and die on your feet rather than live flat on your belly!”
Not mere words, but Inner Force infused his voice. Min-ji, jolted back to herself, drew her Hammer at last—but―
The Magical Girl’s Hammer was already suspended above her head. Stopped by a single hair’s breadth.
Had any more force been applied, Min-ji would have been scattered into pieces.
Thud.
Min-ji collapsed. Her legs had no strength. She had experienced death.
Death. She had always been prepared for it, but not like this—defenseless and sudden.
Fighting spirit, willpower—none of it returned. The gap in power was simply too overwhelming.
Chae Mu-jin left the stunned Min-ji behind and spoke to the Magical Girl.
“Thank you. I’ll ask again tomorrow.”
Naturally, he secured tomorrow’s meeting, and the Magical Girl nodded.
“I’ll see you here tomorrow.”
With that, the Magical Girl vanished without a trace.
* * *
Splash!
Cold water poured over Min-ji from head to toe, and her eyes snapped open.
Drip, drip.
Water ran down her hair and cheeks. Min-ji clenched a handful of earth.
“Did you want to show me how weak I am?”
“Did you learn only that?”
“……?”
“Do you understand now, even a little, how strong Bahamut is—the one you wanted to kill?”
“…Not at all. Even if I exceeded Level 300, I can’t imagine defeating him.”
Min-ji had grown tremendously over the past month. In the official Hunter training camp, she had accepted the Great Force Acceptance and scored over 90 points.
Beyond that, she had experienced Dungeon Drops, leveled up considerably, and now stood at Level 48. It was extraordinary growth. She had grown confident in her strength.
But meeting the Magical Girl then and experiencing death so helplessly—despair consumed not just her body but her spirit as well.
This was precisely what Chae Mu-jin wanted her to experience. Don’t be arrogant. You still have a long way to go. You’re only beginning.
“Min-ji. I ask you once more. What did you feel while fighting the Magical Girl?”
“I already told you. That I can’t win!”
“Don’t shout. Are you advertising your weakness? Cast aside such petty emotions entirely and think. What did you feel while fighting her? Focus on just that one thing.”
Min-ji found Chae Mu-jin cold. But he would not indulge her grievance.
Because of that, Min-ji was forced to think rationally. What she had felt fighting the Magical Girl.
“…It was strange. How the Hammer moved so smoothly and so fast.”
“That’s all?”
“And also… the way she stopped the Hammer right before my eyes was incredible.”
“Keep talking.”
“Ugh…….”
Min-ji clutched her head in distress. Chae Mu-jin waited patiently.
“I can’t think of anything else.”
“Let me tell you from my perspective, having watched. You and the Magical Girl share a common point—you both wield a large weapon, a Hammer at that—but there was a crucial difference between you two.”
“What difference?”
“When you swing the Hammer, your body stiffens to avoid being pulled along by it. But the Magical Girl simply surrendered her body to it.”
“Surrenders her body to the Hammer? If she did that, wouldn’t she lose control of her body?”
“Did the Magical Girl look that way to you?”
“No, well, honestly I couldn’t see well enough to be sure. But she did stop the Hammer, so she must have had control.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
Chae Mu-jin crouched before Min-ji and held out something. It was a Camcorder.
“I recorded everything. Watch it whenever you want.”
“You… recorded it?”
Even that shameful scene where she’d collapsed without landing a single blow, trembling in terror—it was all captured. Min-ji’s face flushed with shame.
“Don’t be embarrassed. Sear that fear into your eyes and overcome it. Then the day will come when you smash Bahamut’s skull.”
Whoosh!
Min-ji snatched the Camcorder and held it to her chest like a precious treasure.
Swearing she would never show it to anyone.
“You seem to have come to your senses now. Let’s get up.”
Min-ji took the hand Chae Mu-jin offered and stood—then froze.
“W-what time is it?”
“Nine p.m.”
Min-ji was dumbfounded. They’d left at six-thirty and arrived here at eight.
The meeting with the Magical Girl had lasted at most thirty minutes, which meant she’d been unconscious for over ten hours.
‘Did he really wait all that time? Or didn’t he wait?’
She dried herself with the towel Chae Mu-jin handed her and climbed into the car.
Her body trembled with cold and her stomach growled.
‘I’m so sleepy.’
The moment she thought she’d just close her eyes for a bit.
“We’re here. Wake up.”
“Mm… is this home?”
“Eat this first.”
“Wow, udon.”
Min-ji devoured the warm cup noodle udon with kimchi without another thought.
“Aah, that was the most delicious cup noodles I’ve ever had.”
“Come on out now.”
Min-ji emerged and looked around.
“This isn’t home, is it?”
“Why would we go home?”
“Then where is this?”
“A Dungeon.”
“…Pardon?”
“You heard me. A Dungeon. Draw your weapon.”
Min-ji could feel it in her body. Chae Mu-jin’s serious training had begun.

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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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