The Game of a Legendary Genius Dark Mage - Chapter 29

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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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Episode 29
Episode 29
0.
At the eastern edge of the vast Perseville Plains.
The quiet forest was suffused with a gentle breeze and the scent of woodland carried upon it, creating an endlessly serene landscape.
Birds sang their melodies from all directions, and grasshoppers chirred—clearly announcing that this was indeed a forest.
Far in the distance, a cliff rising straight up at the forest’s end gleamed brilliantly in the sunlight.
It was a truly spectacular sight.
The peaceful, tranquil eastern forest of the Perseville Plains.
Yet in an instant, black smoke erupted, and a massive inferno consumed the place.
The gentle breeze only intensified the cruel flames, and the forest’s fragrance that had permeated the air was soon replaced by the acrid stench of burning.
The fierce blaze stole away the chirring of grasshoppers and the songs of birds, consuming all of it.
Crackle, crackle, crackle.
Whoooosh!
Green fur and skin, and a squat body.
The goblin’s crimson eyes reflected that fierce inferno.
And then.
-Keruk! Kekek! (Kill them all!)
-Kehuk, Kahruk! (Burn them to ash!)
-Kehuk, Kahruke! (Purify in honor of our master!)
Undead wreathed in darkness and emanating a cyan aura severed the necks of the goblins consumed by despair.
Among the undead that had incinerated the entire Goblin Settlement.
Someone emerged through the inferno.
The undead shrouded in darkness beheld the one who had passed through the flames and bowed in reverence, lowering their heads.
As if worshipping a god itself.
-Kikirik! Kerukhu! (Ahhh! Our great master!)
-Keruk, Parhu! (Our magnificent lord!)
-Kehak, Keruk! (We pay homage!)
Sung Hyeon, the master of the undead who had witnessed everything from beginning to end, scratched his cheek in bewilderment.
I wasn’t sure if this was right.
‘They’re worshipping me… right?’
Objectively speaking, I had swept through the Goblin Settlement as if they were serving some dark god.
And I still couldn’t understand why I had set the fire.
I understood it was for efficient hunting, but I could have swept through them without doing that.
I didn’t think too deeply about it.
Thinking more would only give me a headache.
Still, I had achieved my purpose.
I was satisfied to some degree.
First, the level.
[You have gained experience!]
[Level Up!]
[You have reached Level 20.]
‘Finally.’
I had reached the level needed to venture to the next town.
But that wasn’t all I had been waiting for.
In the Eternal World, you learn a new skill for every 10 levels.
At Level 10, most players undergo a class change, so they don’t gain a skill then.
You obtain a skill immediately upon changing classes.
And the first time you gain a new skill after that is at Level 20.
I was excited, wondering what skill would appear.
With anticipation swelling in my heart, I waited.
The message I had been expecting materialized.
[Upon reaching Level 20, a new skill for the 『Overlord』 class is unlocked.]
[You have acquired the Almighty-grade skill, 『Underworld』.]
‘What?!’
Rarely did I find myself genuinely shocked.
I had expected a Legendary-grade skill to appear.
The first reason was that an Almighty-grade skill had emerged.
The second reason was its name.
‘The Underworld?!’
Just hearing the name, it seemed similar to the Mortuary—the skill Beziron had boasted about learning at Level 30 for storing the undead.
What would its actual effects be?
I immediately opened the skill window for the Underworld.
『Underworld』
→《Almighty》
→[Lv 1][Growth-type]
[Passive Effect][Composite]
Praise the Lord of Death who commands death, the departed, and vengeful spirits, and await here.
The departed and vengeful spirits who praise their lord shall be forever blessed in this place.
→Exclusive skill for the Overlord class.
→Send your created death legion to the Underworld to restore all health and stockpile your forces.
→No mana is consumed when sending or recalling your death legion.
→Undead corrupted by the aura of death can also be sent to the Underworld.
→The death legion stored in the Underworld grows very slowly.
‘…?’
Saying the effects were substantial would be an understatement.
They were extraordinary.
The fact that no mana was required to store and retrieve them was already absurd.
But the final part was especially unreasonable.
The death legion stored in the Underworld grows very slowly.
Skills like the Eternal Vault that store the undead merely preserve them in place.
To command the undead even where corpses don’t exist.
But the undead grow just from being stored?
It was the kind of effect that would get me lynched if I posted it anywhere without saying not to synthesize it.
‘Heh.’
Even I was so astounded that words failed me.
I watched the Death Soldiers continuously devouring mana even now.
I had to test the skill immediately.
There were a total of fifteen Goblin Death Soldiers.
I decided to place all of them into the Underworld.
-Krrgh! (Until we meet again, my Lord!)
-Krrgh-krrgh! (Absolutely! I shall serve only you, my Lord!)
-Krrgh-rook! (For our great Master!)
Behind all fifteen Goblin Death Soldiers spouting their nonsense, teal-colored rifts appeared, and they were sucked through them.
As if they already knew, they were all drawn in peacefully, and the undead vanished in an instant.
[You currently have 15 Death Soldiers stored in the Underworld.]
I let out a short exclamation upon seeing the helpfully informative message.
The effect was certainly excellent.
Now I could summon my Legion of Death even without corpses.
My combat strength had increased.
Since these creatures possessed souls, they were undoubtedly more powerful than other undead.
‘I’m genuinely relieved.’
I never expected it to appear at level twenty.
Though the Legion of Death is the main focus of the Overlord class.
It made sense to grant it early.
I’d leveled up and obtained a new skill.
And.
‘I did film it though….’
I had filmed it for now.
The footage of the undead completely annihilating the Goblin Settlement and me watching it unfold.
There was no particular reason I suddenly filmed it.
Rapid, the guild master, had asked me to.
I did film it, but.
‘Can I actually use this footage?’
It looked far too cruel and vicious to me.
If Helena hadn’t been asleep, she’d probably lecture me again about whether I wanted to be called the Demon King.
I was hesitant, but honestly, I couldn’t be bothered to film it again.
I’d just send it as is.
I gathered the video files I’d filmed so far and sent them to Rapid via friend message.
If she didn’t like it, she’d ask me to send something different, right?
[Sung Hyeon – [Video]]
[Sung Hyeon – Let me know if you need me to do it again.]
[Rapid – Huh…? Thanks, Sung Hyeon. I think this should be enough….]
She said it was fine, so what’s with that dot behind it?
I wanted to ask, but I held back.
I had a rough idea without needing to ask anyway.
So I’d surpassed level 20.
It was time to move on to the next phase.
‘Sekan Village, right?’
The morning after starting the game.
Sung Hyeon headed toward the second village.
The pace was incredible.
1.
You could call it a tradition of the major guilds.
Every major guild had one thing they always did when they recruited a rookie.
It was uploading a solo video of the rookie.
There was a simple promotional effect, but there were several other advantages as well.
First, you could call it seizing the initiative.
A declaration of war to competitors, announcing that you’d acquired an outstanding rookie.
And even boasting about your own recruitment prowess in securing such a rookie.
Not a single advantage to overlook.
The Rapid Guild knew this too, so it was a tradition they’d always upheld.
But this time, Rapid found herself hesitating.
‘Should I really upload it?’
Normally, she would have uploaded it without a second thought.
But after watching Sung Hyeon’s video, she couldn’t help it.
Goblin undead ruthlessly trampling goblins.
Cooperating with each other, devising tactics, moving systematically.
The way they moved in perfect synchronization like machines sent shivers down her spine.
Since when did undead possess such remarkable intelligence?
They were stupid creatures who needed orders barked at them constantly, let alone tactics—they could barely manage to stumble about.
But Sung Hyeon’s undead were in a different dimension.
They thought for themselves and moved independently, as if alive, without Sung Hyeon needing to issue commands.
With bodies superior to their living forms, they ravaged their own kind.
Even the precision of setting fires and laying ambushes to strike down goblins fleeing in panic.
Rapid couldn’t help but swallow hard as she watched.
What was this, a horror film?
It felt like watching a manga or movie where a demon king descends and obliterates the world.
‘This is like a declaration of war to all of humanity!!’
Rather than a declaration of war to rival guilds, it was a video like a declaration of war to humanity itself.
Especially the final scene—Sung Hyun leisurely escaping from that raging inferno with an expression of utter indifference, while the undead knelt and prostrated themselves before him in worship.
It was overwhelming.
There was no other word to describe it.
‘Should I really upload this?’
I was deeply conflicted, but there was no helping it.
Rapid let out a long sigh and nodded to herself.
‘There’s no choice.’
Tradition aside, it felt wasteful to let such a spectacular rookie video rot away unused.
It was somewhat like a declaration of war against humanity, but what did it matter?
The Rapid Guild was already famous for being a loner anyway.
Turning everyone into enemies wasn’t such a bad outcome either.
Yeon’s ranking would probably rise soon anyway.
‘Fine, let’s upload it.’
There didn’t seem to be much editing needed.
The original footage was simply that good.
I would adjust the perspective somewhat, but not by much.
With minimal editing required, I finished the video and uploaded it with my eyes tightly shut.
I had some sense of what kind of shockwave this would create.
‘Things are going to get incredibly busy for a while.’
But I’d managed well enough until now, hadn’t I?
I wasn’t so fragile that uploading a single rookie video would break me.
‘Chaos will probably break loose around tomorrow.’
No matter how spectacular a video was, reactions typically came about a day later.
So I went about handling other guild matters.
About an hour after Sung Hyun’s video went live, one of my guild members burst in urgently.
“Guild Master! Our channel traffic has crashed the servers!!”
“Huh?”
Already?
My prediction had spectacularly missed the mark.
2.
The fastest guild: Rapid Guild.
The Rapid Guild’s channel, which shone at 3rd place in the overall guild rankings, was equally impressive.
20 million subscribers on MeTube.
Though among guild channels operating in the Eternal World, it ranked 45th in subscriber count.
It couldn’t be helped.
Given the channel’s nature of prioritizing live streams over videos, subscriber growth had been slow.
However, the Rapid Guild’s ticket power was more than enough to compensate for those modest subscriber numbers.
Live tickets.
A term referring to live streams where viewers had to pay a certain amount upon entry.
A high number of such tickets was itself a measure of the guild’s prestige.
While I lagged behind in subscriber count, my ticket power ranked second among all the Guilds.
The Rapid Guild, which succeeded in raids faster than any other Guild and cleared them before anyone else, possessed stronger characters than any other Guild.
That’s precisely why I earned the epithet of “Fastest.”
And then, a new video was uploaded from the Rapid Guild.
From the Rapid Guild, which favored live streams over videos, came a video featuring none other than a rookie solo showcase.
It was a video introducing the rookie and serving as promotional content for the Guild.
Hong Jung-min, an ardent fan of the Rapid Guild, couldn’t help but feel somewhat disappointed upon seeing the video upload.
‘Ah, what a shame.’
I would have preferred it if it were a video of another Rapid Guild member.
Yet I remained curious.
‘The Rapid Guild is famous for rarely recruiting rookies, so this rookie must be quite formidable?’
The Rapid Guild was renowned for rarely accepting new recruits.
There were even rumors circulating that they had rejected a Unique-grade rookie not long ago.
If the skill wasn’t there, they wouldn’t accept them regardless of their grade.
That was their iron rule that drove fans to madness.
Every single Guild member was an elite and top-tier player.
‘This time should be no different, right?’
Hong Jung-min, who had initially felt disappointed, soon clicked on the video with anticipation brimming in his heart.
However, even Hong Jung-min, who was obsessed with the Rapid Guild but lacked gaming skill, recognized the field that appeared.
“Huh? Isn’t that Perseville?”
It was a region I had also played in.
Perseville, the first village.
They recruited a user who was active there?
No matter how skilled, wouldn’t that be a beginner?
Such thoughts dominated Hong Jung-min’s mind.
Ah, this is disappointing.
With such thoughts, I decided to watch for now.
With the mindset of at least seeing what kind of user this was.
With a skeptical eye, watching just how skilled this person was, darkness began to descend upon Hong Jung-min’s vision.
An undead shrouded in black darkness, emanating a cyan aura from between its body.
Or should I even call it an undead?
With an appearance so drastically different from the undead I knew, it invaded the Goblin Settlement, which resembled their own kind.
No, this wasn’t an invasion.
“What, what is this!??”
Thoroughly trampling the weak, they burned down the entire Settlement and brutally ravaged and completely destroyed the goblins.
An appearance filled solely with malice aimed at their deaths.
And one man leisurely commanding such undead.
His face was blurred in black, making it invisible, but only his sharp cyan eyes were visible.
Yet from those eyes alone, Hong Jung-min could discern it.
That man was the master of the undead.
As a massive fire demon descended upon the settlement and all the goblins collapsed to the ground,
the footage ended with the figure of a man emerging through the inferno and the undead bowing their heads in reverence before him.
“Insane. This is incredible.”
Hong Jung-min spared no praise.
I couldn’t hold back.
I was about to rush off to write a comment.
Seeing a warning message about excessive concurrent users, I nodded in understanding.
“This is seriously incredible.”
Once more lavishing praise, I moved to a different community and began writing a post.
Naturally, it was a post of admiration for the new Rapid Guild rookie.
-Guys, have you still not watched the Rapid rookie video?

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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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