The 100th Regression of the Max-Level Player - Chapter 208

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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 208
208. Slave Contract
“Black Scythe….”
John Delgado muttered in a daze.
The man he was meant to take revenge on stood right before him.
And not in the Other World, but in reality.
‘I can’t afford to lose focus now.’
John snapped to attention.
In the old days, he would have attacked on sight, but now he knew better.
Rushing Black Scythe was nothing short of suicide.
“Are you… truly Black Scythe?”
“After seeing this scythe, you still ask that?”
Ryu Min brandished the scythe menacingly.
John flinched involuntarily, his hands instinctively checking that his limbs were still attached.
“So you are Black Scythe. How did you find our home?”
“Does it matter?”
John shook his head.
How he’d found it wasn’t important.
Why he’d come—that was what mattered.
“What brings you here….”
“What do you think?”
Answering a question with a question felt like wordplay, but John understood.
Black Scythe knew everything already.
“Revenge… is it?”
“Keep going.”
“Our organization has committed wrongs against you, and you’ve come to collect the price.”
“Hoh. I thought your brain was purely decorative, but it seems it has some function after all.”
Ryu Min grinned wickedly and spoke bluntly.
“As I suspected, I know about the assassination attempt your Messiah made. The attempt itself was clever—not taking our Squad members hostage like last time, but planning a contract killing while I was in a narcoleptic state. Whose idea was it? Dark Soul’s? Yang Chui-wen’s? The Spaniard’s?”
“….”
As expected, Black Scythe knew everything.
But.
‘He knows the organization’s name, Messiah, and even the nicknames of all the apostles….’
I never imagined he’d have gathered intelligence this thoroughly.
‘Could Swingman really have been a traitor?’
Goosebumps rose on my forearms, but that wasn’t important right now.
Considering what I’d done to Black Scythe, being hanged on the spot wouldn’t be surprising.
‘I can’t die like this. Not like this….’
I didn’t even entertain the foolish notion of a surprise attack.
No matter how powerful my summons were, they were nothing but a candle before the wind against Black Scythe.
When a single lightning strike obliterates thirty creatures, what good would summoning an Angel servant do?
Especially with the penalty still in effect?
‘Opposing him through force would be the worst possible choice. If I want to survive, there’s only one path forward.’
Thump—
John Delgado suddenly dropped to his knees.
“I, I was wrong. Black Scythe. I’m truly sorry.”
“You need to tell me what you did wrong before I can understand.”
“I committed the foolish mistake of joining an organization called Messiah, daring to oppose someone as transcendent as you, Black Scythe. I’ve been a nuisance with my pathetic assassination attempts, something I’m not even capable of. I will withdraw from this inferior organization called Messiah immediately, and I humbly beg for your mercy to spare my worthless life….”
“You certainly do draw out your pleas for mercy quite extensively.”
Despite his words, I was satisfied.
I could sense genuine sincerity in John Delgado’s thoughts.
‘He’s not scheming to escape the situation. He truly fears me and desperately wants to preserve his life.’
The word revenge had already faded from his inner consciousness.
Of course, perhaps because of what he’d suffered, he hadn’t completely abandoned it, but John was nearly giving up on it.
‘His only thought is that he must survive until round 20 somehow.’
He understood that revenge, if it were to happen at all, could only come after that. For now, it was merely a luxury.
“I appreciate the sincerity.”
“Then, does that mean….”
“Yes. I’ll spare your life.”
“Th, thank you! Thank you….”
“However, there’s a condition.”
At the word condition, John’s expression of gratitude froze, his eyes widening.
“Wh, what kind of condition….”
“Let’s have a duel, just once.”
“Eh? A, a duel?”
“Yes. I’ll submit the conditions now, so take a look. It shouldn’t be a bad deal for you either, so look it over and decide.”
I manipulated the system window in the air and sent out a duel request.
John Delgado, who had been quietly examining the conditions in the request window, widened his eyes in shock.
[The opponent with the nickname ‘John Delgado’ has sent you a duel request.]
[Duel Type ▶ Non-lethal Sparring Match]
[Victory Condition ▶ Touch even a single hair of the opponent]
[Upon Victory ▶ The loser becomes a slave and serves the winner as their master for life, obeying all commands]
[Opponent Penalty ▶ All equipment and skills forbidden, cannot move a single step until the duel ends, must forfeit the first strike]
[John Delgado Penalty ▶ None]
[Do you accept the duel under the above conditions? Y/N]
‘Wh, what is this.’
John understood what a duel request was.
But the conditions he was betting were simply absurd.
‘The loser becomes a slave to the winner?’
Wasn’t this essentially a slave contract, forcing him into servitude?
‘I absolutely cannot accept this. Absolutely not.’
But what if I win?
Then I could enslave Black Scythe and use him as my servant.
It would be a far more useful revenge than simply killing him.
‘The problem is whether I can actually win against Black Scythe in a duel….’
By any reasonable standard, there’s no way I could win.
It’s a complete imbalance.
A fight not worth watching.
And yet, John found himself lost in thought.
‘He won’t use skills or items, and won’t move a single step? On top of that, he’s even giving up the first strike?’
There was an unexpectedly real possibility of victory.
‘The conditions are favorable. I win if my attack even grazes his body.’
I get the first strike, and I win if I merely brush against the body of an opponent standing motionless like a scarecrow?
Wasn’t this essentially handing me victory on a silver platter?
Despite such favorable odds, John did not easily succumb to temptation.
‘He must have proposed these conditions because he also sees a possibility of winning. He’s challenging me to a duel so he can make me his slave.’
His intentions were painfully obvious.
Even knowing this, John could not easily bring himself to refuse.
If he did, the man might simply kill him here for being useless.
‘No, he definitely would. A cold-blooded bastard like that would surely….’
Then there was only one way to escape.
Contrary to Black Scythe’s expectations, I had to win the wager and make him my slave.
That was the only opportunity given to John Delgado and the sole way to overcome this situation.
[The duel has been established.]
[The duel between the two will begin in 10 seconds.]
Ryu Min’s lips curled into a smirk as he read the message.
‘I knew he’d accept.’
John never had a choice to begin with.
The situation didn’t afford him the luxury of deliberation.
‘It was an appealing proposal. The chance to make me his slave.’
Moreover, by imposing penalties, I’d balanced the scales appropriately.
I’d merely guided it to appear disadvantageous, yet favorable enough to seem winnable.
‘Even though I can’t use skills, can’t move, and am giving up the first strike….’
Ryu Min harbored no concerns.
With the Rune of Inner Truth and the Rune of Future Sight, I was confident I could see through any move.
“I yield the first strike. Come at me.”
“No need to tell me….”
A spectral form materialized at the tip of John Delgado’s staff with a whoosh.
“I know, you bastard!”
A ghostly figure coalesced at the end of John Delgado’s staff.
Sariel, a spectral undead who takes damage only from magical attacks.
He materialized in a gaunt form with nothing but bones remaining.
“Kill that bastard!”
At his master’s command, Sariel rushed forward without a word, closing the distance in the blink of an eye.
So fast it seemed like teleportation.
Sariel’s curved blade—the same one he wielded in life—flashed brilliantly, drawing a line through the air.
I’d granted him the first strike as promised.
Ryu Min simply shifted his upper body to evade, then spoke a single word.
“Discharge.”
Lightning crackled and shot forth, piercing through Sariel’s torso and boring clean through the ceiling of the house.
“What—what is this!?”
For an Archangel-class summon, it was an anticlimactic exit, but that wasn’t what shocked John Delgado.
“You said skills were forbidden!”
“This isn’t a skill—it’s a rune effect.”
“You goddamn cheater!”
Realizing he’d been deceived, John Delgado calmly deployed his next move.
Woooooooo—
Five spectral undead materialized from the tip of his staff, spreading in all directions before simultaneously engulfing Ryu Min.
But there was no twist.
“Area Burst.”
With a single ability, everything nearby was obliterated.
But John, having anticipated this, immediately summoned five more.
‘No need to unleash everything at once. They’ll just be wiped out in one hit anyway.’
John’s strategy was simple.
Distribute forces and attack in waves.
‘That damned ability must have a cooldown.’
If he attacked in groups of five, the cooldown would prevent him from blocking them all.
A smile crossed John’s lips.
This was the strategy he’d prepared for, and it was certainly a winning one.
If only Ryu Min didn’t possess the Rune of Darkness.
“Scatter.”
A sphere of darkness rose gently, transforming into dozens of blades that spread in all directions.
Pitter-patter-patter-patter-patter-pang—!
Because the damage was infused with magic, the spectral undead were struck by the blades and dissipated.
Every last one of them.
And among them was John Delgado himself.
“Gack….”
A blade of darkness lodged in his forehead, John Delgado collapsed to his knees.
[The duel has ended. Black Scythe is victorious.]
[As the opponent has been defeated, they shall become a slave and serve Black Scythe as their master for life, pledging absolute obedience.]
The duel had ended.
A smile played at the corners of Ryu Min’s lips.
‘Everything went according to plan.’
Just as with Ju Sung-tak, I had made John my slave through a duel challenge.
John, whose forehead wound had mysteriously vanished, lifted his head while still kneeling.
“I greet you, Master.”
“Good. John, there’s something I want to test with you.”
“Please give me your command.”
I had killed Sariel just now, but since it was through a duel challenge, I couldn’t be certain of anything.
“Summon an angel.”
“The cooldown has 5 minutes remaining. Would you mind waiting a moment?”
“Very well.”
After 5 minutes, John summoned the spectral Undead Servant once more.
Lacking a sense of self, Sariel did not recognize me.
‘Let me test whether stacks accumulate even when I kill a summoned creature. Discharge.’
Crackle!
I immediately unleashed lightning, obliterating Sariel.
However, no message appeared, and the count on my Demon Rune remained unchanged.
[Angels Defeated: 1/100]
‘So it only counted when I killed Sariel the first time.’
In other words, defeating an angel summon would not allow me to accumulate Demon Rune stacks.
‘If I could gain benefits from killing summons, I wouldn’t need to go through all this trouble.’
The same applied to other summons—defeating them yielded neither experience nor gold.
If they did, players across the world would never sit idle.
‘Surely all summoners everywhere have been cooperating to level up in the real world as well.’
I already knew summons provided no benefit, but I tested it anyway just to be thorough.
‘It shows how desperate my situation truly is.’
To face the next Archangel, I needed to accumulate stacks so I could activate Demon’s Blessing whenever necessary.
‘I need to defeat 99 more angels before I can use the blessing—how am I supposed to do that?’
But with no way to encounter angels, accumulating stacks seemed impossible.
‘Should I have threatened the angels to come forth like I did with Remiel, then killed them?’
I felt it was a waste to have simply killed Sariel, but I shook my head.
‘He was resisting until the very end. He wouldn’t have come willingly.’
He was not the type to yield to threats.
‘There’s no helping it. Next time I encounter an angel, I’ll have to test this. It’s possible the count doesn’t register because it’s a spectral Undead Servant.’
If the corpse remained intact, I could create a corporeal Undead Servant.
Unlike spectral forms, corporeal Undead Servants could not be resummoned once destroyed, so it might be different.
‘I’ll have to wait for the next test—whether the count increases if I kill an angel that has become a corporeal Undead Servant.’
If counting corporeal Undead Servants was possible, John Delgado’s value would skyrocket.
It would mean I could accumulate stacks far more easily.
‘If that’s the case, I’ll make use of you for the rest of your life.’
Of course, regardless of the outcome, Ryu Min had every intention of continuing to exploit him going forward.

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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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