The Archmage’s Swordsmanship Is Too Strong - Chapter 46

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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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46
Episode 46. The Ant and the Penthouse
***
Days had passed. Before the lingering echoes of that chaotic night could even fade, the world had already swept away its traces and given them a new name.
‘Stardust Shock.’
It was the media’s umbrella term for the tragedy that unfolded at Club Arabian that night and the vast corruption hidden behind it.
The collapse of Club Arabian wasn’t simply a matter of one entertainment establishment shuttering its doors.
It was like excising an entire malignant tumor that had burrowed deep into the heart of a massive city called G City.
As the rotten blood that had pooled in the basement erupted outward, the supply networks of Booster that had been circulating covertly beneath the surface began, one by one, to expose their grotesque reality.
I sat deep in the living room sofa, my eyes fixed on the television screen.
Day after day, the names of Booster, Jang Yu-cheong, and the powerful figures who had backed them flickered across the display.
Camera flashes rained down on the silhouette of a corrupt police executive being transported to the prosecutor’s office.
Those lined up at the photo opportunity all scrambled either to bow their heads or shield their faces with their collars.
[There will be absolutely no nepotism. I declare G City a Booster-free zone in its entirety.]
Park Gwang-chul, G City’s mayor. His face, standing grim-set before the microphone, was shadowed by a cool fury.
He declared that he would massively expand investigative personnel and commit resources without limit to wage war on narcotics.
The steadiness in his gaze was too resolute to dismiss as mere political theatrics for public favor.
‘He means it.’
I took a sip of the lukewarm coffee. The bitter taste lingering on my tongue jolted my senses awake.
In my memories from before the Regression, Mayor Park Gwang-chul was known for his integrity and unbending principles.
Though corrupt underlings might have clouded his eyes and ears, the moment the wound was laid bare, he was a man who would wield the blade without hesitation.
Regardless of his reasons, the administration’s power would now be concentrated on exterminating the Booster pest.
The parasites that had been sucking marrow in the darkness would now be forced to burrow deeper into holes just to survive.
Kim Dae-han, the team leader of Ability Management, was reportedly to receive a promotion two ranks and a generous award for his credit in the operation.
The one-person guild, Blade, was also packaged as a heroic outfit that had rescued civilians from the collapsing building, gracing the front pages of various communities.
My involvement would not make Booster vanish completely from this world.
The roots of the Red Blood Alliance still ran deep, and as long as humanity’s shallow craving for pleasure existed, the devil’s dust would find its way back in one form or another.
But at least this city—G City—had changed.
It had taken a step back from that ghastly future where tens of thousands of innocent citizens, like in the days before Regression, would be addicted to narcotic Mana and reduced to meat shields for interdimensional monsters.
That alone was sufficient reward for the effort I had expended. An efficient investment.
There was another story making waves across the world. This one was better suited for a headline in the economic section than for a social affairs report.
[Taesung Energy Announces ‘Permanent Freeze’ on Mana Crystal Cartridge Public Supply Prices. A Bold Move That Will Reshape the Industry.]
As I watched the text scroll past at the bottom of the news ticker, a faint twitch crossed the corner of my mouth. Jeong Se-hee.
It was an official statement released exactly three days after she had returned on her own two feet to the main family—the owner’s household of Taesung Energy.
“So the chairman’s youngest daughter must have crawled back home on her own and struck a deal. I’m one hundred percent certain of it.”
Through the smartphone, my sister Min-seo’s voice carried the excitement of a hunter who had snared an exclusive.
I switched my gaze between the two monitors on the desk, clicking the mouse while listening with one ear to her briefing in silence.
“That family’s pedigree is glittering on the outside, but it’s a total disaster underneath. You have no idea?”
According to Min-seo’s account, the truth was this: Jeong Se-hee’s two older brothers, who now held key positions at Taesung Energy.
On the surface, they were celebrated as affectionate co-managers, but in reality, they were adopted—not bloodline heirs.
Jeong Se-hee alone was the only legitimate heir with true lineage.
The true matriarch, who had been cast out and divorced from the chairman, had seized on Jeong Se-hee as a pawn in a bloody succession war to reclaim management rights.
“How ruthless must the power struggle in that world be? Eventually, someone—whether sent by the brothers or by some other opposition faction, no one could tell—kidnapped the youngest daughter. They ground her mind to powder and leaked scandals to completely bury her in the line of succession.”
I tightened my grip on the mouse. The click cut sharply through the room.
“Thankfully it didn’t happen, but that poor girl must have been devastated. The family she trusted was trying to shove her into hell just for money and power. So she got sick of it all, dropped everything, and disappeared. But then, out of nowhere, she marched straight into the family home and negotiated something. She walked right into the tiger’s den on her own.”
Fragments of the past aligned like cold teeth interlocking, completing a picture. The way she hyperventilated and paled with fear whenever muscular men circled her.
The compulsive habit of carrying a tactical knife hidden in her boot sole, staying alert twenty-four hours.
And that convulsive resistance to anyone trying to control her.
It was not mere affectation or vanity. It was the product of a thoroughly shattered survival instinct and a desperate defensive mechanism.
What had been running through her mind in that slaughterhouse of a VIP room when she looked at me?
The price freeze announced by Taesung Energy was, perhaps, the most powerful blade she had wielded to protect Jeong Se-hee.
“So? How did you find out? Even reporters haven’t cracked it yet—it’s a complete embargo. What’s your relationship with the chairman’s youngest daughter, really? Come on, tell me straight, Kim Do-jin.”
Leaving Min-seo’s persistent probing behind, I stared at the red chart filling the screen.
Numbers trembled in real-time, drawing geometric curves.
“Just a coworker.”
“A coworker? You’re messing with me. You’re really suspicious lately. The way you’ve been······.”
“Hold on. I’m busy right now. We’ll talk later.”
“Hey! Kim Do-jin! You’re really······!”
I pushed the phone to the corner of the desk and switched it to mute. My sister’s nagging, repeating like a parrot through the receiver, fell silent.
My gaze remained fixed solely on the sell order window.
[Sell order executed.]
A cheerful notification chimed through the quiet room. Simultaneously, the digits in my account balance rolled without pause, climbing ever upward.
For a Mage, memories of the past are like the archives of a vast library. Every figure and piece of knowledge is etched into brain cells without the slightest margin of error.
Especially so when that knowledge is the record of a failure accompanied by bone-crushing pain.
Before the Regression, I poured my entire fortune—accumulated through Hunter work—into the stock market and lost precisely one billion won to thin air.
The defeat I felt then was far more vicious than standing before the army of a Demon King.
Ten years of KOSPI and NASDAQ price history analyzed through sleepless nights, signs of delisting, the minute tremors before penny stocks exploded.
Those blood-soaked records were stored pixel-by-pixel in my mind.
Resentment over lost money pierces even through the merciful fog of forgetfulness.
Tap, tap.
With each mechanical keystroke, vast sums of cash flooded into my account.
The blue glow of the monitor reflected across my vacant eyes, rippling.
[Considering current upward pressure, if you hold until tomorrow, you can expect at least an additional fifteen percent gain, sir.]
[May I ask why you’re insisting on selling at this point?]
Lunaris Airi materialized from thin air, scattering silver dust, her wings beating with apparent confusion.
I set down the mouse and leaned back deeply into my chair. The warmth lingering at my fingertips cooled pleasantly.
“Can’t destroy the ecosystem.”
[The ecosystem, sir?]
“For the market to function properly, countless individual investors have to exist at the base, supplying liquidity. If I wielded my future knowledge here and monopolized every profit, the very economic indicators I know could become meaningless. The market needs its foundation to stand.”
I shook my head lightly toward Airi.
“I’m just one giant ant among many riding the currents of this vast ocean of capital, riding the flow by luck. I have no intention of collapsing the ecosystem itself. The wisdom lies in fattening myself in moderation—that’s how you survive long in this world.”
Slaying the neck of the evil divine dragon that would bring the world’s ruin is important work.
But savoring this opportunity gained by reversing time was also among the spoils I had to claim for myself.
I chose the shrewdness of lightening only what I needed, within a range that would not disturb the market’s flow.
Before long, the numbers displayed in my account had reached the target figure I’d set in advance with perfect precision. I unmuted my phone and picked it up again.
“Sis.”
“Huh? Why? Haven’t you hung up yet? Are you finally coming to your senses?”
“We’re moving today.”
“······What? Moving? What kind of crazy talk is that all of a sudden? Where do you have money for that?”
“I’ll text you the address. Come right now with Mom.”
I spoke flatly while checking how many zeros were in my account balance on the screen.
“You’re not joking, right? Where is this place? Is it a jeonse lease? Or monthly rent? You didn’t do something stupid, did you?”
“You’ll see when you get here. Hanging up.”
Without another word, I pressed the call-end button. My smartphone began vibrating frantically with a ringing sound.
The screen filled with Kim Min-seo’s bewildered texts and missed calls, but I ignored them and walked out of the office with light steps.
In my past life, I had been a burden to my family, and in the end, I failed to protect them.
Now it was my turn to repay all that debt and grant my family absolute safety.
***
I still remember the sensation of the day the old pillars supporting my life came crashing down helplessly.
Cold air and the iron scent of blood, and the poison of powerlessness.
The Donggu Reung Gate collapse. That horrific catastrophe when tens of thousands of Skeleton legions ravaged the heart of the city.
As a worthless E-rank Hunter at the time, I was deployed to a low-level Gate in distant Busan for barely a pittance of wages.
While I grappled with goblins and rolled in the dirt, the civil shelters of G City had become slaughterhouses of the undead.
Beneath a mound of collapsed concrete, my mother lay cold, caked in dust and blood.
And my sister—her entire body carved to shreds by the Skeleton’s corroded blade—still cradling our mother in her arms at the moment of death.
After that day, my heart stopped beating. Only blind vengeance and murderous intent drove me forward.
Decades spent as a machine without emotion, computing mana. But in this miraculous second life given to me, I made myself a vow.
To these fragile, precious people, I would give the most overwhelming indulgence and the most unshakeable fortress I could offer.
“This··· What is this··· Oh my, Do-jin······.”
The front door opened and my mother stepped inside, covering her mouth as she sank to the floor. Her hand gripping the shoebox handle trembled faintly, her legs giving way.
A penthouse in a ultra-high-rise mixed-use complex overlooking the vast river that was the lifeblood of G City.
The expansive living room of over a hundred pyeong was finished in the finest Italian marble.
Beyond spotless floor-to-ceiling windows, afternoon sunlight poured down, reflecting off the marble floors to bathe the entire room in golden light.
Not a single won of loan was needed to buy this house. Eleven billion won. Paid entirely in pure cash, an absolute territory in my mother’s name.
It was far more than simply an expensive home.
The walls contained the highest-grade Mana-Blocking Alloy densely embedded within, and a Multi-Layered Defense Barrier System was operational against external physical impact.
Even if an A-rank Gate opened in the heart of the city and monsters swarmed forth, this building alone could withstand longer than any other—an impregnable sanctuary.
“Oh my··· Oh my, in all my days··· I never thought I’d see a place like this······.”
Crushed by the oppressive scale of the living room, my mother couldn’t bring herself to step forward, only repeatedly pressing her hand to her chest.
Meanwhile, Kim Min-seo, who had followed her in, kicked off her shoes carelessly and burst into the living room.
“Crazy! This is insane! Hey, Kim Do-jin! Did you actually win the lottery?! Or did you rob a bank vault?!”
“Even if I won the lottery, I couldn’t buy this place.”
He answered tersely and walked toward the center of the living room. Min-seo tore through the vast space like a madwoman, then pressed her nose against the window.
“Mom! Come here and look at this! The river is literally right beneath us! This is crazy, I’m telling you!”
“There are so many rooms… so many rooms. It’s so empty it’s frightening, really…”
“We’ll just fill them! Starting today, I’m making a furniture shopping list! Yes! Kim Do-jin, you’re the best!”
His sister bounced with unbridled joy, while their mother’s eyes grew wet with tears, as if unable to grasp the reality of it all.
I stood in the center of the living room, silently watching that cacophonous, warm scene unfold before me.
From deep within a corner of my heart that had frozen solid, an unfamiliar, alien warmth bloomed—faint as starlight.
It was a sensation different from the circulation of Mana, one only humans could feel.
“Starting tomorrow, people from the interior design company and furniture brands will come. We’ll replace all the appliances with the highest specifications.”
I spoke evenly to Min-seo, who was still cheering as she gazed out the window.
“Take tomorrow off work and oversee the move-in. Be thorough about it.”
“Of course! Leave it to me! Wow, you’re my brother but you’re seriously insane.”
“Do-jin… how can you just buy such a massive house like this? I’m not sure we’re supposed to live somewhere like this…”
Mother still gripped the end of my sleeve, uncertainty clouding her eyes. I gently covered the back of her rough, creased hand with my large palm. Her warmth transferred to me.
“Of course.”
My voice was low and measured. But beneath it lay a weight heavier than any oath.
“You deserve it entirely. From now on, don’t mind anyone’s gaze. Enjoy the highest place without worry—that’s my goal.”
A thick tear rolled from Mother’s eyes and wet the marble floor. I didn’t turn away from that tear; I met it squarely.
A tear of relief, different from the blood tears I had shed before the Regression.
Only now did I truly feel my feet firmly planted on the soil of this world.

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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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