S-Classes That I Raised to Devour - Chapter 93

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 93. The Madman of This Dimension Is Me (1)
Entry into the Special Demon Countermeasure Division required passing through three months of rigorous training.
Among those trials, the most notorious by far was the fourth week—hell week.
During that single week where not even one second of sleep was permitted, more than half the trainees would collapse, foaming at the mouth.
Despite such brutal conditioning, I could never forget that hell week. The sleep I’d collapsed into the moment those seven nightmarish days ended was every bit as sweet as the rest I felt now—like being buried in the warmth of cats raised in heaven.
“Hah!”
The very comfort unsettled me. I jerked awake, instinctively reaching for my weapon and scanning the surroundings.
An old wooden building. It smelled faintly of musty timber, yet the room was oddly pristine—not a speck of dust anywhere.
Creak.
The door opened, and an elderly man entered carrying a bowl of thin soup and half an apple.
I sensed no malice, but I kept my guard up and asked coldly, “Who are you, and where am I?”
“Mushtra.”
“Do you speak English?”
An utterly unfamiliar pronunciation—bizarre in a way that no earthly language could match.
When speech failed, the old man rummaged in his pocket and produced a necklace I recognized: the translation necklace I’d received from Duralph. The very same one.
‘I’d put it in my Inventory. How did he get it?’
The old man extended his hand, gesturing for me to take it. Wary of any hidden curse or trap, I signaled with a jerk of my chin for him to drop it on the floor.
The old man complied without resistance, tossing the necklace down. The moment I picked it up, my eyes widened.
【Equipment—Duralph’s Translation Necklace (Modified)】
Rarity Grade: Unique → Legend
Quality Grade: F
Duralph’s traditional necklace. The wearer is considered a friend of Duralph. Modified by the Archmage.
• Translates all languages.
The Rarity Grade had jumped two ranks in an instant, becoming Legend tier. That crude device, which had only translated the language of a specific race, had transformed into a broken artifact—interpreting all languages at once.
Suppressing my bewilderment, I fastened the necklace around my neck, and the old man opened his mouth as if he’d been waiting for this moment.
“Can you understand me now?”
“…Where is this place, and who are you?”
“This is the Land of Oblivion, and I’m Kalkon, the keeper of this old inn.”
There was no animosity in Kalkon’s words or manner, so I lowered my weapon and bowed apologetically. “I’m Chae Mujin. It appears you’ve saved me. I apologize for drawing on you so rudely on first meeting.”
“Heh, don’t burden yourself. It’s simply my role, nothing more.”
“Your role…you mean?”
“Follow me. Showing you will be faster than explaining.”
Kalkon set the tray on the table and led the way. Once we stepped through the doorway, a long corridor stretched before us—the typical layout of an inn.
“Are there other guests besides me?”
“Just you for now.”
We descended the stairs to the first floor. Crossing an empty taproom of sorts, we stepped outside into a sight that stopped my breath cold.
An ashen sky. Ashen earth. A desolate, utterly colorless expanse—as if all vitality and hue had been systematically drained from the world.
And this ramshackle inn we stood before was the only thing maintaining its existence, wrapped in what looked like an enormous translucent soap bubble of protective barrier.
“Let me ask you something first. Do you feel any strange gaps in your memory?”
“Gaps in my memory?”
“You didn’t first open your eyes in that inn bed. You were lying unconscious in the wasteland beyond that ashen barrier. I found you and brought you here immediately, but you’d been left defenseless for at least ten minutes.”
“Surely you don’t mean memories vanish if you go beyond the barrier?”
“Your instincts are sharp. In the Land of Oblivion, one of your memories perishes permanently every single second. Trivial ones first—what you ate yesterday evening—but eventually, your birth, your name, even the most intimate fragments of your life—those people you loved with every fiber of your being—all of it is erased without trace.”
A hollow laugh escaped between my lips as I listened to Kalkon’s matter-of-fact explanation.
“Ah, does the reality of what you’ve lost finally strike you? I do hope you don’t lose your mind before we’ve even begun.”
Kalkon misinterpreted my laughter as despair, clicking his tongue sympathetically.
But the truth was the opposite.
“No, sir. I haven’t lost a single memory.”
“Beyond denial, straight into rationalization, I see.”
“Believe me or not—it doesn’t matter. In any case, I’m not losing my mind, so please don’t throw me out.”
For all his rustic appearance, anyone who could casually raid my Inventory and upgrade an item to Legend tier was far from ordinary. There was no point in provoking such a creature.
“In any case, you may stay here as long as you like. So long as you follow three simple rules.”
The rules he laid out, spreading his fingers to count them, were disturbingly straightforward.
First: do not damage anything in this place.
Second: you’re free to venture beyond the barrier, but once you leave, you can never re-enter the inn.
Third: do not ask about the location of the exit.
“Do you yourself not know where the exit is, or do you know but cannot tell?”
“Your question is flawed from the start.”
“Pardon?”
“Everyone searches for an exit, but this is not a building like an inn, nor an artificial dimension like a Dungeon. This place is itself an enormous, independent dimension—like the Heavenly Realm or the Demon Realm. So naturally, there’s no physical exit you can walk to. Of course, I understand what you truly wish to ask: you seek a Gate back to your original world.”
Kalkon shook his head slowly, as if weary of the question.
“The Land of Oblivion is the terminus of all things. That you’ve fallen here means your journey ends here. You cannot go anywhere else.”
* * *
In the silence, Kalkon was mentally prepared to suppress Chae Mujin if needed.
Those who faced this terrible truth typically reacted one of two ways: they went mad on the spot, or they thrashed about trying to reach madness.
But Chae Mujin was neither.
“You seem to know this Land of Oblivion quite well, sir.”
“…Don’t harbor false hope. Hope only drives people mad in this place.”
“Hope doesn’t drive people mad. People go mad when they lose it.”
“How many times have I watched hope turn to despair? Give up. Accept your fate, and at least your mind will find peace.”
“I have no intention of letting fear dictate the course of my life. I will pursue hope.”
In those brief exchanges, Kalkon discerned what manner of person Chae Mujin was.
“Stubbornly principled, aren’t you?”
“Accurately assessed, sir. So—will you help me?”
“Help though you may ask, I myself cannot venture far from here.”
“That’s acceptable. What I need is your experience.”
“Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The two of them wandered the desolate landscape, conversing quietly.
Chae Mujin returned to his room and organized the information Kalkon had provided:
—[1. The Land of Oblivion has no day or night.]
—[2. Lose all your memories, and you become an Abstract—a grotesque entity that wanders endlessly.]
—[2–1. Being attacked by an Abstract means having your memories stolen.]
—[3. There is a path, but no one knows how far it extends or what lies at its end.]
These details drove home why Kalkon urged him so insistently to abandon hope.
In essence: cut through the memory-devouring monsters, and walk an endless path blindly.
‘One thing is certain—no one has ever returned.’
If anyone had survived and made it back, that information would still exist.
But the odds were high that returning was impossible even if they wanted to.
This was a world where memories evaporated by the second. Before reaching the end, they would have forgotten why they needed to return in the first place.
‘Or they’d forget the very purpose of following the path at all.’
There was no denying it: escape from this place, alive, was impossible.
But Chae Mujin possessed at least one privilege: the ability to witness the path’s end.
Akashic Record. The absolute preservation of memory.
This was the moment when he truly grasped, body and soul, why this ability held EX-rank status beyond all reckoning.
In this mad world where memory obliteration was absolute law, that law crumbled before him.
In the Land of Oblivion, Chae Mujin was a cheat player holding infinite immunity.
“By that logic, even if an Abstract attacks me, my memories won’t be stolen.”
At least that much was undeniably positive.
But the real problem remained: the length of the path and whether an end existed at all.
The Shadow Bag contained three months’ worth of provisions. If rationed carefully, it might stretch to nine months. Hunger was a problem he could manage.
“Whether I can withstand the Abstracts’ assault—that’s the question.”
When he asked how strong the Abstracts were, Kalkon offered an unexpected comparison.
“At minimum, A-rank Hunters or higher.”
“…How do you know of Hunters, sir?”
“The Land of Oblivion touches all dimensions. So anyone can arrive here—including Earthlings. Why wouldn’t they?”
Moreover, Kalkon said the Abstracts grew more numerous and stronger the deeper one traveled along the path.
‘If only I had allies… No, what good would allies be?’
How far could he advance with companions slowly losing their memories? Worse, they might suddenly forget who he was and attack him.
‘I’d need to wait for someone like me—someone with memory-preserving abilities. That would be the textbook approach.’
But when would that happen?
He’d asked Kalkon that too.
“The last person before you arrived twenty-eight days ago. It’s been six days since they left the inn.”
Twenty-eight days seemed manageable. Then Kalkon added something.
“Before that, no one came for two years.”
The variance was extreme.
Two years? He could wait.
Except he couldn’t. Not if time flowed the same as in reality. Two years of his absence meant the outside world would not remain safe.
‘It’s not just that I’d lose two years to prepare for the Demon Lord.’
A Magical Girl was on the verge of going berserk. In Seoul.
It would have been better if she detonated in Gangwon Province as originally planned. But in Seoul? South Korea would be finished.
He couldn’t wait two months, let alone two years.
‘Should I wait a month while praying someone else shows up?’
No. Waiting was the option Chae Mujin hated most.
“I’d rather catch up with whoever left before me.”
Kalkon said that person was also a Hunter, with an unusual appearance—he’d recognize them on sight.
They likely carried some kind of protection against memory loss.
Once the calculation was done, there was no reason to hesitate. He was preparing to leave immediately when something caught his eye.
“Korean?”
In the upper corner of the weathered door frame—too high to see clearly at first glance.
Dragging a chair over and climbing up, crude lettering carved deep into the wood came into sharp focus.
—[Kim Hyun-sung was here.]
Looking slightly higher, he saw rope marks scored deeply into the ceiling beam—unmistakable and precise.
He imagined that final moment unbidden. A person who chose to remain human here rather than become a horrific creature outside, stripped of everything. A terrible, quiet courage.
Before that sorrow, Chae Mujin quietly retrieved a pencil and wrote beside the inscription.
—[Chae Mujin was here too.]
* * *
“You’re leaving already?”
“There’s no more information to extract here, and huddling down to wait won’t improve the situation.”
“Recklessness and courage are separated by a single sheet of paper. Won’t you make a careless mistake in your haste?”
“I’m not in a comfortable position, but I found no reason to stay.”
“Aren’t you afraid?”
“I am. Afraid of how long the path is, how strong and numerous the Abstracts are, what waits at its end. But fear doesn’t fade from waiting—it only grows.”
“…Reckless yet wise.”
“If I can, I’ll return and tell you what’s at the end of the path.”
He bowed in gratitude and turned to leave. Kalkon reached out and called him back.
“Wait, come here.”
“If you mean to stop me—”
“I’m not, so lend me that sword at your hip.”
Chae Mujin wore the Sword of Light Efilui at his waist—practically his only weapon. But he trusted Kalkon enough to hand it over.
Kalkon grasped both the hilt and blade in both hands, and his eyes flashed open wide.
In that instant, a kaleidoscope of iridescent geometric light swirled around the sword, pulling inward like a black hole into the blade—
Crack-thzzzt!
Lightning-like sparks erupted through the air, violently repelling that overwhelming radiance.
As though the very laws of the world would not permit any further intrusion.
“Ungh!”
Kalkon swallowed a rough gasp as he withdrew the rainbow light he’d been forcing in, leaving only a single thread of pure, refined radiance. With visible effort, he shoved it deep into the sword’s core.
“Causality permits no more than this. Take it.”
Chae Mujin accepted the blade bewildered but hopeful—much as when he’d received the translation necklace. He opened the system window hovering before him, and his eyes widened in shock.
【Equipment—Sword of Light Efilui (Modified)】
Rarity Grade: Unique → Legend
Quality Grade: B → A
A blade of pure light. Deals Light-Attribute damage rather than physical harm. Modified by the Archmage.
• Light-Attribute Attack Power +196 → 356
• Pierces Chaos-Born defenses.
• Attack Speed +70 → 120
• On hit: Target’s Light-Attribute Resistance –1% → 2% for 10 seconds
(Stacks)
• Sword Technique +5 → 8
• Self-Repair

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————