The Cursed Blacksmith Who Regressed - Chapter 92

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

Episode 92

I lay down for a moment.

The fierce battle with the Ice Bear.

It was just one, but after killing one, I was completely drained.

I closed my eyes.

I dozed off.

It was still bright outside.

I quickly got up, grabbed the basin, and went inside the station.

The interior of Hasan Station was a mess.

But this was a mess with purpose.

This place was used by Shasha as a kitchen, and since smoke could attract monsters, she had deliberately cluttered various parts of the 1st floor.

More precisely, she had stacked up cover and obstacles.

That way, even if monsters came after seeing the smoke, they would see the complex structure of the 1st floor and turn back.

I went up to the 2nd floor and took out a burner and frying pan in a ventilated area.

Then I melted the fat I had harvested from the Ice Bear’s body to use as oil.

Ice Bears actually have almost no fat.

But without even that little fat as accompaniment, Ice Bear meat was truly inedible.

In the first place, how many humans would even think of eating monsters, but to survive in Hasan, there was no choice.

Fortunately, things like salt, pepper, and butane gas were plentiful.

There was quite a bit in the Market Warehouse and Hasan Station Kiosk Warehouse.

I grilled the meat.

Sprinkled salt and pepper on it and ate.

It had no taste.

It was fishy.

It was tough.

But I ate it anyway.

After eating several chunks of meat, the poison began to spread.

It was the poison I had used when hunting the Ice Bear.

My muscles ached, but I ignored it and continued eating.

After finishing all the feed-like chunks of meat, I finally lay down.

It ached.

My body felt heavy like wet cotton.

It was fine.

It wasn’t like this was the first or second time I’d eaten poisoned meat.

A notification window appeared before my eyes showing I was poisoned, but I ignored it.

Instead, I used a skill.

[ Recovery is activated. ]

When I used the recovery skill, my depleted stamina was restored.

I closed my eyes again.

I groaned like a sick person.

Then when my stamina dropped, I used the recovery skill.

I was used to it.

After repeating this behavior for quite a while, the poison effect disappeared.

[ You have overcome the poisoned state with your physical abilities and mental strength. ]

[ Conditions have been met. ]

[ Your skill grows even stronger. ]

[ Skill ‘Poison Resistance 4’ has grown and some information has changed. ]

[ You have acquired skill ‘Poison Resistance 5’. ]

System notification.

I sat up and checked the contents.

It was a change notification I hadn’t seen in a long time.

Perhaps because of that, I smiled for the first time in a while.

After checking the notification, Shasha confirmed the information for Poison Resistance 5, then took out a small glass bottle from her inventory.

Inside was deadly poison powder.

I dipped my finger and ate a small amount.

A fishy taste.

At the same time, I immediately fell into a poisoned state.

Though it was a small amount, deadly poison was still deadly poison.

My body became stiff.

But a smile appeared on Shasha’s lips.

Because the pain was much less than last time.

Considerably so.

Based on the feeling, it seemed like if I raised the poison resistance skill level just one more stage, I would be completely free from the deadly poison I just consumed.

I lay down again and repeated resting and recovering until the poison effect disappeared.

After a while, the poisoned state was lifted and I got up again.

I picked up the telescope I had placed nearby and surveyed the surroundings.

This place used as a kitchen was the highest location among the places Shasha frequented, making it perfect for surveying the area.

What I could see were sleet and the snowfields they had formed, and the monsters moving across them.

They were persistent creatures.

There were four types of monsters roaming nearby.

Despite the Ice Bears consistently showing overwhelming victory in the lengthy territorial disputes, other monsters still invaded Ice Bear territory.

They were all creatures that had newly emerged from the Dungeon.

But thanks to that, I was able to survive.

The territorial disputes that kept arising due to new monsters kept the entire Hasan area tense, making them maintain a certain distance to avoid touching each other as much as possible.

In that subtly maintained distance between touching and not touching, Shasha lived in hiding.

After turning the telescope around for quite a while, she took out a map and marked several places.

It was the task of deciding where to scout today.

Her daily routine was simple.

Maintain weapons, hunt and eat monsters, and build resistance to the poison effects that occurred in the process.

And when she had time, she scouted the surroundings.

Though she had been here for over three years, she had no intention of staying stuck in Hasan forever.

‘Today, here.’

She decided on a scouting location.

Shasha was originally an ordinary girl born on Sakhalin Island.

Having gone hunting with her father since childhood, when she became an adult, the Great Catastrophe began, and after awakening, she chose the healer class after much deliberation.

The reason for becoming a healer was nothing special.

When medical supplies became difficult due to the Great Catastrophe, the only way to quickly secure treatment methods in Sakhalin was to change to the healer class.

The situation kept getting worse.

Due to the explosion of Areas, Sakhalin eventually became an island where people couldn’t live, and people had to move to the mainland.

Many people died in that process.

Many kidnapping crimes also occurred.

Shasha was one of those victims.

Children and women were mainly the targets.

The kidnapped people were moved to Hasan.

The kidnappers called themselves ‘Volk Bratva’.

Hasan at that time didn’t have many monsters.

The existing native residents and the Volks collaborated to drive out monsters and turn the entire town into a criminal den.

It wasn’t like that from the beginning.

When the government abandoned the frontier regions, the natives also joined hands with them to survive.

Hell unfolded.

The Volks did all kinds of money-making schemes.

Human trafficking, drug manufacturing, illegal item distribution, and more.

China, which wasn’t far away, was their main trading partner.

In that process, it was revealed that Shasha was a healer Player.

Thanks to that, instead of being sold off, she ended up helping the Volks with their work.

More precisely, she worked as one of the few healers in the poor medical environment.

Of course, she couldn’t just do healing activities.

They demanded her body every night, made her do odd jobs, and put her in charge of caring for loudly crying children.

Her body remained intact due to her healing abilities, but her heart was breaking apart.

Her insides were rotting away.

Then one day, the dungeons increased.

The two dungeons became four.

It was an emergency.

After much deliberation, the Volks planned to sell off all the women and children they had and leave the village.

Fortunately, Shasha learned of this fact before the tragedy could occur.

Shasha was also included among the people to be sold.

That’s when her crumbling inner self opened its eyes again.

She decided to escape.

She judged that if she continued to be manipulated by the Volks like this, she would never be able to break free from her shackles.

She decided to use poison.

Getting poison was easy.

The Volks had brought a lot of poison from China for efficient monster hunting.

She mixed it into the food and drinking water.

Of course, this alone couldn’t kill all the Volks.

That’s when her hunter instincts awakened.

Born and raised in Sakhalin, she had spent quite a long time hunting with her father.

The deed happened at night.

When everyone started convulsing from poisoning, she began to move.

She fought for her life.

She killed them all.

She killed the Volks and the locals who had been helping them.

The locals begged for their lives.

“Ah, you know! We only did it to survive, to survive…!”

“I know.”

“What?”

“I’m doing this to survive too.”

She killed everyone except the kidnapped people.

All that remained were a few women and children.

She asked them.

What did they want to do?

They all said they wanted to go home.

But they said they couldn’t go.

They said the changed world was scary, the monsters roaming outside were scary, and China where other people had been sold was even scarier.

So they lived together.

People who had lost their place to go, staying together.

They said let’s try to live as a family for as long as they could.

But in the end, only Shasha remained.

Due to the intensifying cold, lack of food, and stress from monsters constantly fighting over territory, the already weakened women and children ultimately couldn’t endure and had no choice but to die.

Shasha thought she might follow them in death.

But she gave up on death because of what the child who stayed with Shasha until the end said.

The child’s name was Mikhail.

He was a 7-year-old boy who particularly followed Shasha like an older sister.

On the night he was suffering from a terrible fever, before his breath stopped, Mikhail said to Shasha.

“Shasha must live.”

The words telling her she must live.

With those words, Shasha couldn’t die.

She vowed to definitely survive and deliver news of those who died first to their families.

From then on, she struggled to live.

She gathered weapons, collected supplies, reorganized the residence, and divided what she could and couldn’t do.

Her ultimate goal was escape.

To leave Hasan and go to a place where people lived.

In that sense, the place she set as her target was Hunchun in China.

North Korea had collapsed and was full of monsters.

So what remained was either Russia or China, and China was relatively closer.

Among them, Hunchun was the place the Volks used every time they sold people and bought supplies.

There were closer places too, but places that were too small like Hasan might have already been abandoned by people, so she had to go to a somewhat larger city.

Of course, Hunchun might also be empty of people.

So she decided to build her strength in preparation for that possibility.

To reach Hunchun on foot without any proper means of transportation, she had no choice but to endure the cold and monsters and push through, so all she could do was build her strength in Hasan.

So she deliberately wore thin clothes to acquire cold resistance skills, poisoned herself to gain poison resistance, and hunted monsters every day to level up.

Having finished her preparations, she came outside.

An outing for reconnaissance.

More precisely, it was the route to Hunchun.

She moved for tomorrow again today.

And.

“Hmm.”

Choi Hyun, who was checking his compass, muttered.

“We’re almost there.”

Having finished his rest, Choi Hyun starts running again.

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