The 100th Regression of the Max-Level Player - Chapter 162

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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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The Maxed-Out Player’s 100th Return – Episode 162
162. Lightning Rune Test
【Soul Bond Quest】
└Defeat all Seven Archangels
└Archangels Defeated So Far (1/7)
└Upon Success ▶ ?????
‘A Soul Bond Quest? I’ve never seen one like this before.’
I’d only ever seen Main Quests and Sub Quests—this was my first encounter with something like this.
‘Looking at it, this Quest must have been triggered by killing that Archangel….’
The reward was hidden, and the difficulty was astronomical.
After all, it required me to kill all Seven Archangels to succeed.
‘If I interpret the name “Soul Bond” correctly, this Quest must persist even after the round ends, right?’
Normally, Quest deadlines expire when a round concludes.
They don’t carry over to the next round.
But given the name “Soul Bond” and the impossible difficulty to complete in a single round….
‘This must be a Quest that continues until I die.’
There was no other way to interpret it.
‘So I essentially need to kill all Seven Archangels before Round 20 ends? Though now it’s just six.’
The difficulty was absolutely absurd.
As I let out a hollow laugh, Yamtti approached me.
“Master.”
Just as my Reaper Form dissipated, my true face was revealed.
“Is it all finished?”
“Yeah. I’ve taken care of what needed to be done.”
“That last angel you caught seemed quite powerful….”
“One of the Seven Archangels—the highest rank among the Angels.”
“Gasp, you defeated such a magnificent being, Master?”
“Magnificent, sure. But when I actually faced them, they weren’t much.”
I chuckled and cleaned up the corpses with a trace-erasing spell before speaking.
“Let’s go. Time for the Sub Quest.”
* * *
As I left the Temple, I concealed my Last Moment Returner title.
[Your reputation with the Holy Empire regarding Last Moment Returner has declined from ‘Hostile’ to ‘Mortal Enemy’.]
This was because I’d incurred the Temple’s wrath by killing not only the Angels but the Holy Emperor as well.
‘Though technically, the Holy Emperor was killed by another Angel.’
Since I’d hidden the title, no troublesome consequences would arise, but I couldn’t hide the bitterness.
‘I do one good deed in ages, and all I get is hatred from my own kind.’
Well, it was just empty grumbling anyway, and truthfully, I didn’t care.
Whether they saw me as an enemy or not, when I didn’t even know if these NPCs were real inhabitants of the Other World, why would I concern myself with such things?
‘Regardless of what others think of me, as long as I get my reward, that’s all that matters.’
There are plenty of titles anyway, so there’s no shortage of replacements.
“Master, do we have to part ways now?”
“Yeah. If we start clearing from here like I said, we should be able to fill four more before the time limit. That should be enough to make Achiever without any issues.”
“Whimper, I don’t want to say goodbye….”
“Stop acting cute and get going. If you dawdle and fail the Quest, disappearing on me, I’ll hunt you down to the depths of Hell itself and punish you.”
“Ah, understood! I’ll definitely survive!”
Yamtti had to live.
Her abilities would be useful to me in the future.
After parting with Yamtti, Ryu Min moved forward immediately.
‘I’ve already completed one sub-quest, so I need to finish nine more in the remaining nine hours.’
I had already decided which Quest to tackle first.
Based on my experience so far, I had already mapped out the optimal route that would minimize time and travel distance.
‘Let’s start here.’
Ryu Min entered the Alley lined with street vendors next to the Plaza and approached an NPC.
“I’ve come to buy some items.”
“Welcome! What can I get for you?”
“Everything from here to here, please.”
“Pardon?”
The second sub-quest was ‘Flexing at the street stall’.
* * *
Finding sub-quests in Round 10 isn’t difficult.
You can discover them by wandering around, and there are many varieties.
Item delivery, errands, favors, monster extermination, escort missions, and so on.
There’s even work like covering a shop for a few hours as a temporary substitute.
‘But that wastes too much time, making it inefficient.’
Sub-quests are best when they can be completed quickly.
Currently, the fastest ones are donating at the Temple and buying out all the street vendor’s stock.
‘Besides these two, every other Quest takes at least thirty minutes.’
After purchasing the items, Ryu Min headed to the Mercenary Group next, which offered the second-fastest Quest.
“Welcome. What brings you to the Golden Eagle Mercenary Corps?”
“I’d like to take on a subjugation mission.”
Monster subjugation is a Quest that takes considerable time, but if you have the skill, it’s a fast Quest that can be completed within thirty minutes.
The receptionist at the desk brightened upon seeing Ryu Min.
“Oh my, I see you’re a skilled-rank Mercenary. We have just the right subjugation mission for you.”
[Please touch the monster you wish to subjugate.]
└ 1. Lizardman
└ 2. Werewolf
└ 3. Skeleton
└ 4. Sandworm
[To cancel, please decline.]
Ryu Min selected the strongest Sandworm among the four.
‘Since the subjugation time is roughly the same anyway, I might as well take down a strong one and earn some experience points.’
Had I been standing there for about a minute after being told to wait?
The Mercenary Group’s door opened, and a group approached me with a greeting.
“Are you Black Scythe? Pleased to meet you. I’m Hark Berman, Commander of the 3rd Subjugation Squad of the Golden Eagle Mercenary Corps. Shall we depart immediately?”
“Of course.”
The place I followed the Subjugation Commander to was in front of a massive, futuristic-looking machine.
It was what they called a “Warp Device”—a machine that teleported you to various locations in an instant.
“Come this way.”
I stood on the Warp Device alongside the Subjugation Commander and his subordinate mercenaries.
Whirrrrr—
In the blink of an eye, I arrived at a Desert where Sandworms periodically emerged.
“From here on, we’ll have to walk. Shall we go?”
【Sub Quest – Subjugate Sandworms】
└Condition ▶ Subjugate 100 Sandworms
└Current Sandworms Defeated (0/100)
Upon seeing the message, I let out a quiet laugh.
‘For anyone else, this Quest would take two hours.’
For me, it wouldn’t even take thirty minutes.
If there were enough monsters, I could finish even faster, but considering the Sandworms’ spawn frequency, thirty minutes was the limit.
I moved along with the Subjugation Squad of ten members.
They were all NPCs, and they didn’t even bother speaking to me, as if I held no interest for them.
By the setting’s logic, they weren’t a party but mercenaries bound together by business, meant to compete with each other.
‘Still, I don’t need to worry about my share being stolen.’
The mercenaries here were nothing special in terms of skill.
If they were players, they’d be around level 30—the kind who could barely take down a Sandworm with three of them.
‘In other words, the NPCs here merely serve to draw the monsters’ attention, while the actual subjugation falls to the challenger—the player.’
Well, I didn’t even need them to draw attention.
The Sandworm would already be a corpse before they could.
“It’s appeared!”
At the mercenary’s cry, I turned my gaze to see something writhing beneath the sand.
Though I couldn’t see it, I’d already sensed it with my presence detection.
It was a Sandworm.
Just as I was about to draw my scythe, I put it back into my inventory instead.
‘Should I test out the Rune I just obtained?’
I’d never used the Lightning Rune before, so I was curious about its effects.
I also needed to familiarize myself with the sensation beforehand if I was going to use it later.
Crackle, crackle—
Sparks erupted from my hand.
‘This is the feeling, then. Lightning magic doesn’t have good matchups against Sandworms, but will it be alright?’
Magic is a powerful offensive tool, but it has elemental matchups.
Against Sand Worms with earth attributes that move beneath the sand like that, electric-attribute magic is halved in effectiveness.
In other words, the damage is reduced by half.
‘Well, damage should still land regardless.’
With high intelligence stats, there shouldn’t be any problem catching it.
“Shrieeeeeek!”
“It’s coming out!”
The Sand Worm that burst from beneath the sand revealed itself to be a massive creature, like an ancient tree.
But.
‘Discharge.’
The lightning that shot from Ryu Min’s fingertip struck the Sand Worm directly.
Crackle—
In an instant, it became nothing more than a charred earthworm.
Thud—
The mercenaries stared in stunned silence at the Sand Worm, now blackened and burned, dead in a single blow.
“Were you a mage?”
“To kill such a terrifying Sand Worm in one shot—that’s incredible!”
“A truly formidable archmage has joined our Subjugation Squad!”
Despite the praise pouring in from all sides, Ryu Min didn’t respond once.
He was a bit bewildered himself.
‘I expected something like this because of the high intelligence, but to actually die in one hit…’
The damage was so overwhelming it rendered elemental matchups irrelevant.
He could probably fool anyone by claiming to be an archmage.
‘If the Seer questions how a Prophet fights, I can just show them this.’
Crackle, crackle—
Ryu Min smiled as sparks burst from his palm and moved again.
The subjugation was easier than expected.
* * *
A mercenary group can only conduct three subjugations.
Ryu Min was able to complete all three within the minimum time of thirty minutes.
It was the result of using the Lightning Rune.
‘No, even if I had wielded the scythe, I could have finished within thirty minutes.’
But throughout the subjugation, Ryu Min only used the Lightning Rune.
He never even drew the scythe.
It was to familiarize himself with the rune’s power, but…
‘Above all, it’s more convenient.’
Standing still and casting magic was definitely more comfortable than running around with a scythe.
Since everything died in one hit, catching them was easy too.
Thanks to the common skill Dexterity, hitting wasn’t particularly difficult.
‘Discharge, charging, area burst, amplification—I’ve tried just about everything, haven’t I?’
Of course, I didn’t even dare attempt self-destruction.
The damage was high enough that a mistake could cost me my life.
‘Self-destruction should only be used as an absolute last resort. Though I’m not sure when I’d ever need it.’
Admittedly, being a mage had its advantages—plenty of area-of-effect skills and convenient combat options—but it wasn’t all benefits.
‘When all the cooldowns are running, there’s nothing left to do.’
After experimenting with the Lightning Rune, I discovered that each ability had its own cooldown.
‘Discharge had the shortest at 6 seconds, but….’
On a battlefield where life and death hung in the balance within seconds, a 6-second gap was an absolutely massive penalty.
‘So that’s why magic-users are so careful about skill management and cooldown rotation?’
Of course, as a hybrid like myself, it wasn’t something to worry about too much.
If I exhausted all my spells and had nothing left to cast, I could simply switch to my scythe.
[The Subjugation has been completed.]
[Your performance is recorded in the Mercenary Group.]
[Your Mercenary Group rank has risen from ‘Skilled’ to ‘Expert’.]
Completing consecutive Subjugations had raised my Mercenary Group rank.
‘Next time, I should be able to take on more difficult missions.’
Though I was still far from being able to hunt dragons.
‘Now, where should I head next….’
I checked the time as I left the Mercenary Group headquarters and moved forward.
I should be able to comfortably complete ten more.
* * *
10 hours.
It was quite a long time, but before I knew it, it had slipped away while I was doing Quests.
“No, this can’t be! There’s barely any time left!”
“We, we need to do at least one more….”
The players who had been shouting noticed the change and lifted their heads.
Somehow, we had returned to the Monochrome Space where we started.
“Is it already been 10 hours?”
“Argh! I was almost done with my Quest!”
Since the ranking system was based on the number of Quests completed, players had been doing nothing but Quests without rest.
As a result, many people had arrived partway through, and unfortunately, any missions in progress were counted as abandoned.
[Humans? It’s Nel. How are the Quests going? Well then….]
“Angel! I was working on a mission until just now? Really, just 10 more seconds and it would’ve been complete, so could you count it as a success….”
[You wretched human struck by lightning!]
Nel’s eyes turned eerily cold, and the player clamped his mouth shut.
[How dare an inferior human interrupt an angel’s words? And when did I ever say questions were welcome? Are you protesting to be killed?]
“I, I’m sorry….”
[Don’t even answer. I don’t want to hear it.]
It wasn’t my imagination that the angel seemed angrier than usual.
[Normally I should show you the results, but before that, I have one question for you all.]
Nel’s foul mood had a single cause.
[Is there anyone among you who has received a divine oracle?]
The death of Remiel, one of the Seven Archangels, had thrown the Heavenly Realm into upheaval.

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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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