S-Classes That I Raised to Devour - Chapter 90

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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 90. Manager’s Anguish (10)
Unlike the 1st Generation Hunters whose bodies had seized up, the two of them moved at once.
Chae Mujin cast a Buff on Brian, who then generated twelve Clones to send at the Kraken and draw its aggression.
The Kraken was a natural disaster merely by moving. It destroyed everything in its path—trees, boulders, Pirate Goblins. It even pulverized a small hill with a body check.
Brian’s Clones attacked the Kraken with everything they had. Yet bizarrely, the Kraken spared them not even a glance as they tore into its own flesh.
Lee Minji swallowed hard, her expression sour.
“I might be imagining things, but it feels like it’s coming this way.”
“I don’t think you are.”
Chae Mujin covered his mouth with his hand—an old habit that surfaced whenever he made a judgment where life and death hung in the balance.
“It’s after me. I’ll be the bait.”
“What? That can’t be right. Isn’t it angry because we took the Corpse Flower?”
In response to Lee Minji’s urgent objection, Brian drew the line coldly.
“There’s no way. How many Corpse Flowers have Hunters taken all this time? It doesn’t make sense for it to get angry now and come to land.”
“Doesn’t it also not make sense that the manager is its target?”
“I was the one who threw the Baby Kraken into the sea.”
“……!”
“I stabbed it with a blade when I threw it so it would be visible, made it bleed. The Kraken’s blood splattered on me too, and I think it either saw that or caught my scent.”
At that moment, Kim Yeoul, who had been listening silently from behind, stepped forward.
“If the manager is right, shouldn’t I be the one to lure it?”
It was true that Kim Yeoul had beaten and killed the Baby Kraken.
But Chae Mujin shook his head.
“You probably have some of the Baby Kraken’s blood on you too. But not as much as what’s soaked into me.”
“But…….”
“Don’t misunderstand. I’m not trying to sacrifice myself. I can lose the Kraken. I promise I’ll come back unharmed.”
Brian looked like he had much to say, but in the end he carefully accepted the Corpse Flower that Chae Mujin held out to him.
“Will you be alright?”
Chae Mujin gave the anxious 1st Generation Hunters a composed smile and answered.
“Executing the mission perfectly while protecting the team—completing both flawlessly. That’s what a manager’s burden truly is.”
The ground convulsed as if reality itself were turning inside out. There wasn’t even a second left to speak. The Kraken had closed in beneath their chins.
“Go. Before it’s too late.”
As his companions turned and fled, Chae Mujin didn’t forget to cast a Buff on their backs.
* * *
Just as I predicted, its target was exactly me.
Even as my uncle and the others fled in the opposite direction, it didn’t spare them a glance and charged straight for me.
Gasping as if my lungs would split, I carved a single truth into my mind.
‘I just need to buy time.’
The Kraken is fundamentally a marine creature. No matter how monstrous it is, it must breathe through gills. There’s a limit to how long it can endure on land. Once it runs out of breath, it will crawl back to the sea of its own accord.
I ran toward the Northern part of the island like a madman. It wasn’t just because it was the opposite direction from the others.
‘The north is a massive bedrock zone. There’s no way it can break through easily—’
Crack! Boom! Bang! Crash!
‘It’s breaking through.’
My heart pounded like it would burst, yet the distance between us steadily narrowed.
Moreover, the Kraken was bleeding torrentially from every part of its body. Its own flesh had torn as it scrambled over land, smashing through terrain and obstacles. A sticky river of blood formed in its wake.
‘They say a parent who’s lost a child feels their insides torn out. Looks like your insides are torn out too.’
I understand, but that doesn’t mean I’ll go quietly and let myself be shredded. That’s just the nature of this godforsaken world.
Even as I fled, I racked my brain frantically. Did I have any equipment or weapon in my inventory to stop that beast’s charge? It wasn’t worth deliberating—obviously not.
But if I’m not alone, that changes things.
At the northern end of the island lies the Pirate Goblins’ fortress. Those brutish creatures should’ve realized by now that this catastrophe was barreling into their own backyard.
Boom-boom! Bang!
Right on cue, cannon fire thundered as chain explosions tore across the Kraken’s massive body.
Driven by survival instinct, the Pirate Goblins unleashed a torrent of firepower at the Kraken as if grinding their very souls into it.
‘The Kraken won’t be able to ignore that.’
But it wasn’t a moment to stop and take comfort. The goblins directly in front of me were all leveling their muskets at once.
But compared to the Kraken’s relentless tentacles, the goblins’ bullets were child’s play. I crossed my Light Sword and Demonic Sword to shield the vitals, deflected stray fragments with Body Strengthening Qi, and powered through.
‘I’ll hide inside the goblin den and let them both destroy each other.’
The goblins’ formation was already chaos. Some trying to face the Kraken, some scattering to survive, others caught up with me and firing frantically.
Bang! Bang!
I didn’t care if they shot at me. My eardrums were nearly ruptured by the deafening roar of the Kraken grinding through the forest behind me anyway.
Just then, a spine-chilling wind pressure raked down from directly above my head.
I didn’t need to look up to know. The Kraken’s tentacle was coming down on me like a fly swatter.
Crash! Boom!
I deployed the异形环位 and bounced away from the impact point.
The trees, boulders, and goblins where I’d been an instant before were crushed into nothing as if pressed by a multi-thousand-ton hydraulic machine.
Even the terror of my heart sinking was a luxury. I drove my legs frantically. Stop and I become meat.
Thud!
I tumbled ungracefully to the dirt. Using the momentum from the fall, I bounced back up immediately, but my entire body felt weighed down by lead.
Getting healed doesn’t mean my body snaps back like a video game character.
My body screams that it’s hit its limit. It begs me to rest.
‘If I’m dead, I’ll rest plenty anyway. So why does it want rest so badly?’
I pulled another Awakening Agent from my Shadow Bag. There was no time to unwrap it—I just shoved it in my mouth and swallowed it whole.
Whoosh!
A whistling sound again from above my head. No need to look—the tentacle barrage.
Just as I was about to squeeze out another异形环位, my throat choked and a dark mass of blood surged up. There was no time to spit it out. I instantly deployed the Celestial Barrier to keep from being crushed.
Boom!
A golden curtain caught the house-sized tentacle.
But against this brute force, even an A-rank defensive skill couldn’t hold forever. I rolled along the ground, still wrapped in the barrier, and scattered a bundle of Grenades with pulled pins in all directions.
Boom! Crash!
Explosions bloomed, and thick clouds of dust rose, reeking of gunpowder. My ears rang with tinnitus.
‘The dust will block its sight, and the gunpowder will mask my scent.’
I could only pray it worked. Otherwise, this was truly the end.
The good news was that the smoke screen worked to some degree.
The bad news was that the mad disaster didn’t give up on me.
It hoisted its mountain-sized body skyward and slammed it down on the blast center, then spread twelve tentacles out in all directions like spikes.
‘No way.’
That dreadful premonition became reality.
The Kraken’s massive body began spinning with industrial-mixer ferocity.
As the torso turned, the twelve tentacles spread out around it spun like saw blades.
Anything caught in the rotation radius of that brute mass would have only one end.
‘I’m going to be minced like a tomato in a blender.’
I was about to run, but stopped.
The creature had lost me in the smoke.
So it was spinning the blender to grind everything in the radius to dust—but if I broke out and revealed myself now, I’d instantly become meat.
I tamped a Grenade supercharged with Mana into the dirt beneath me and detonated it.
Boom!
I hurled myself into the crater it carved.
Simultaneously, the Kraken’s spin breached critical velocity. Everything around it was sucked skyward by the insane wind pressure.
I converted the Heavenly Transformation into a World Tree bark shield, fixed it to my back, and pressed myself flat.
Roar!
The tempestuous wind pressure and destructive force scraped past my back, nearly bursting my eardrums. The dust and stone fragments that had been pulled skyward rained down like hail.
The vacuum vortex created by the Kraken’s spin tried to suck even my body out of the crater.
I scraped together every scrap of Mana left in my limbs and drove it deep into the earth like a wedge, holding firm as my spine nearly snapped.
Lying flat in the dirt with limbs spread, bracing like a plank during a core workout—a laugh escaped me despite everything.
“Haha, cough! Ahahaha!”
Each laugh sent blood froth back up my throat, but so what.
I’m alive right now.
* * *
The Kraken’s blender spin finally stopped. I carefully brushed away the stone fragments and sand heaped above me and surveyed my surroundings.
Through the rubble, the house-sized eye of the Kraken glinted with rage as it scanned methodically.
I immediately lowered my head and held my breath.
Of course, the Kraken wasn’t about to give up.
‘Come to think of it, can the Kraken breathe on land with no trouble at all?’
I saw no sign of its gills struggling or being blocked.
Instead, it reared its mountain-sized body toward the sky and began expelling ink with a grotesque sound.
It had figured out that I was hiding underground.
But surely filling this whole vast area with just ink would be difficult, right?
Splash! Splash! Splash! Splash!
As if mocking my hopes, ink began filling the crater I was buried in.
Had it converted every drop of moisture in its body into ink?
The Kraken’s ink was heavy and sludgy, like tar that had seeped into the earth.
‘Being in that ink would compress my lungs so I can’t hold my breath, and the moment it sticks to my body, I’ll be as heavy as if chains were wrapped around me.’
The judgment was swift and clear.
I kicked out of the crater and burst free, running like a madman again.
Fortunately, the Kraken couldn’t immediately chase me once I was visible. It couldn’t shut off the fountain of ink in an instant.
In that brief window, my heart hammering, I thought of my team’s safety.
‘By now, they’ve completely left the island.’
The original plan was to use a Buff Link to warp to them, but that wasn’t an option anymore.
‘I’ve got no Mana left.’
There’s no way to conserve Mana while enduring the Kraken’s attacks. I can’t even run without spending Mana or it’ll catch me.
So what am I supposed to do?
Will the Kraken tire first, or will I?
In probability terms, my chance of survival was 99.99 percent dead.
“Then there’s only one way.”
In this moment, a desperate gambit occurred to me that could dramatically raise my odds of survival.
The Deep Dive in the Volcanic Crater.
I’d throw myself in.
Then at least I won’t die to the Kraken.
Of course, survivors who’ve made it back from Deep Dive are extremely rare, and even those became Dungeon Psychos—I know that much.
‘But it’s better than dying with a 99 percent certainty right now.’
I squeezed out what strength remained and ran toward the Volcanic Crater.
The Kraken, too, seemed to be reaching the limit of its endurance on land—its pursuit slowed noticeably, and thanks to that, I barely managed to reach the cliff’s edge of the Volcanic Crater.
“Haha.”
All I could do was laugh at the Deep Dive sprawling below the cliff.
I couldn’t even tell if this was extreme good luck or horrible misfortune. My mind refused to settle.
A Kraken that’s supposed to live a solitary life suddenly shows up with a baby, throwing variables into chaos.
I barely manage to kill the offspring, then the Kraken that should stay in the sea chases me onto land and seeks vengeful retribution with ruthless tenacity.
And now, in this relentlessly off-beat spiral of terrible fortune, the gates of hell called Deep Dive open wide, waiting to save me.
I turned slowly. My eyes locked with the massive, bloodshot eyes of the Kraken that had half-demolished the island in pursuit.
I raised my middle finger at it and shouted.
“Come on and try to follow!”
I threw myself backward over the cliff behind me.
The Kraken’s enormous tentacle came down like lightning, slashing through empty air as it stretched after me. Its tip grazed the edge of my pants leg—
Splash!
I fell into the Deep Dive.

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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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