The Regressed EX-Class Martial God Decided to Become a Thousand-Star Hunter - Chapter 48

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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 48
Episode 48.
The Magi Erosion Zone of the Eroding Plain—a land of mystery where, according to common knowledge, no one had yet ventured deep enough to reach its heart.
In his previous life, after Ju Do-gyeom survived this place and returned, he had publicized the existence of the Purification Flower and the details of what lay within.
The most precious item found there was already something he had claimed for himself, and he’d made the information public hoping to spare others from meeting a similar, senseless fate through erosion.
After that, many Hunters came to this Magi Erosion Zone.
The rule of Dungeons: high risk yields high reward.
Expectations for what lay inside were correspondingly inflated.
Of course, the vast majority found nothing.
As mentioned, Ju Do-gyeom from back then had already picked the place clean of anything worthwhile.
‘I was lucky too. If that other Hunter who leaked the survival method had come first and stripped everything, there’d have been nothing left for me.’
Either way, it had made revenge possible.
Ju Do-gyeom had been driven into this place because his trusted teammates had betrayed him and tried to kill him.
‘…… Such things did happen.’
Reflecting on it now felt strangely distant.
For a long time afterward, he couldn’t trust people and couldn’t form a team because of it.
Yet in the end, he had come to stand against calamity alongside comrades he could truly believe in.
The landscape of the eroded plain’s interior, seen after so long.
While Ju Do-gyeom gazed upon it and regret surfaced in his mind, Kim Han-ryul had no time for sentiment.
“What in the hell are these things!”
The moment they passed through the entrance, they were attacked by monsters warped by erosion.
Unlike before, they couldn’t simply barrel through on a motorcycle and knock them down.
Unlike the common monsters of the plain’s outer reaches, which were relatively easy for C-Rank Hunters to handle, the creatures within the erosion zone were far more durable, aggressive, and faster besides.
Take the swarms of Dust Locusts that, outside, would turn entirely to blackened ash with just a spray of flames.
The Swarm Colossus—a monster that seemed to be multiple swarms merged together—was even more troublesome.
It moved like a massive two-legged creature, but since it was fundamentally a mass of insects, she gripped a Flamethrower in each hand and unleashed fire.
Shrieeeek—!
The monster let out a ghastly shriek and drew the flames into its palms instead, consuming them.
The Assault Rifle she hastily materialized proved even more useless.
The Mana bullets that flew from her trigger strikes did punch holes through its body, but they sealed themselves shut immediately afterward.
It was obvious at a glance.
No damage was being done whatsoever.
Her frustration had to burst out.
And Ju Do-gyeom?
Though his mind dwelled in regret, his body was far from idle.
Against the Blight Mantis—its skin glowing with jewel-like violet radiance against its reddish hue—and
the new-model Blight Bison, a buffalo-shaped creature of unknown origin but easily twice the size,
he alone was handling dozens upon dozens of both species.
Smashing with the Meteor Hammer, cleaving with the Great Halberd.
Crash—!
With a weapon in each hand, Ju Do-gyeom moved like a tornado of living steel.
Any Blight monster that caught his path was no more significant than a sheet of paper in a shredder.
He didn’t even need to resort to his Killing Technique for this.
‘In my past life, I came here as a B-Rank and still struggled quite badly.’
The Blight-series monsters were as solid as their outward appearance suggested.
Yet now, even without being a complete C-Rank Hunter, he could overwhelm them.
There were two main reasons.
Unlike before, he was extracting every last bit of efficiency from his Ability Stats.
And he was stocked with a far more diverse and potent arsenal of martial techniques and skills.
Thanks to that, even while his thoughts wandered elsewhere, Ju Do-gyeom had already mopped up the dozens of creatures and turned to look back.
Kim Han-ryul had summoned the Mark Two—the D+ Rank Dungeon boss monster she favored most.
She’d equipped it with Flamethrowers instead of assault rifles on both arms and was now shouting.
“Die! Die already, you giant insect mass!”
And then.
Whoooosh—!
The Mark Two, originally a boss monster itself, unleashed a torrent of flame that completely engulfed the Swarm Colossus, which collapsed and scattered to ash across the ground.
Kim Han-ryul wiped the sweat from her chin and spoke.
“Huff… huff… What a tough one. Making me create the Mark Three and all.”
Ju Do-gyeom walked closer and picked up the Magi Stone the Swarm Colossus had dropped.
“It’s far better than ‘Flame Fart Wagon,’ at least.”
He tossed it to Kim Han-ryul, and her eyes lit up.
“A High-Grade Magi Stone? What, the Dungeon gives these out at C Rank?”
A single High-Grade Magi Stone was worth dozens of mid-grade ones without question.
Naturally, prioritizing those was far more efficient for the limited Inventory space than filling it with mid-grade and mid-high-grade stones.
“True enough…… the difficulty’s already way beyond C Rank anyway.”
Kim Han-ryul laughed softly and stowed the High-Grade Magi Stone in her Inventory.
After that, she dematerialized the Mark Three.
She moved to stand beside Ju Do-gyeom and asked,
“Is there a specific destination in here? Or are we just clearing these things out and heading back?”
“There’s a destination.”
“Ah…… do you know where?”
Ju Do-gyeom shook his head.
“It’s not pinpointed. But we’ll know once we get close enough.”
“Well, that’s cheerful news. So that’s why you said we’d be in here for several days.”
“It won’t be a waste. There’s no Settlement here, but we get additional Growth Bonus to our Ability Stats instead.”
“Oh, now that you mention it…….”
Something — her Mana felt a bit higher.
And that wasn’t all.
With a Hunter’s senses, she could clearly feel her other stats growing as well.
In normal Dungeons, you only felt that kind of growth at Settlement checkpoints or when you had some special growth experience to show for it.
‘Come to think of it, I did accomplish something this time…’
The development of the Mark Three, following the Mark Two.
The Mark One’s slot was destined to remain permanently vacant.
“Even so…… it’s definitely substantial.”
At this rate of increase, it felt more efficient than everything she’d ground through in other Dungeons over the past few months.
Of course, there was the downside of having to keep consuming those strange flowers and fighting monster swarms that were frankly dangerous by her current standards, but it was unmistakably different.
‘…… So the team leader had it all planned out.’
She’d thought she was running hard enough, but being with Ju Do-gyeom made her feel like she’d suddenly sprouted wings.
Or maybe she’d never been running at all — just walking.
She smacked her lips.
Ju Do-gyeom spoke to Kim Han-ryul as she did.
“Let’s move.”
“On the motorcycle?”
“No. Monsters will keep spawning from here on, so we explore on foot.”
“Got it.”
“……?”
“What?”
“Your voice sounds a bit down, somehow.”
“It’s nothing. You don’t need to worry about it. Sigh…….”
Ju Do-gyeom felt a moment of puzzlement but simply nodded.
“Then I won’t ask further.”
“…….”
He said she didn’t need to tell him, so why did it sting?
Kim Han-ryul stared at Ju Do-gyeom’s back for a moment.
Of course, Ju Do-gyeom paid no attention to her gaze and walked on ahead.
Kim Han-ryul let out a deep sigh.
“Sigh…….”
I’m the fool here, that’s all.
* * *
The distinguishing feature of the Eroding Plain was the sheer number of monster swarms.
As they watched the approaching Magi Erosion barrier, those creatures scattered, but many were caught in the wave all the same.
To say more plainly, it meant monsters were seething inside the Erosion Zone itself.
As a result, roughly ten hours after entering,
Kim Han-ryul was utterly exhausted.
It wasn’t that she’d gained nothing.
For Kim Han-ryul, her Precision Materialization level rose to 5, and she acquired a new skill called Runaway Materialization, which granted a ten-minute special enhancement to designated materialized items.
It was likely the result of using Materialization technique in rapid succession like a madwoman.
Ju Do-gyeom’s progress was somewhat simpler.
But its significance was enormous.
His Mana rank rose from D+ to C-.
The first barrier in his Ability Stats shattered in an instant.
To be honest, this exceeded Ju Do-gyeom’s expectations.
‘The Magi Erosion effect helped, but I didn’t account for how much my current stats lag behind what I had before.’
In truth, Hunter Ability Stats grow harder to raise the higher you climb in Rank.
Most Hunters can’t break through from D+ to C-, and because the additional effects are so potent, it’s called the first barrier for a reason.
Real growth becomes dramatically slower after that threshold.
And Ju Do-gyeom from his past life had entered here during his B-Rank Hunter days and felt it firsthand.
Naturally, the sensation now had to differ greatly from then.
‘At this pace, while I’m here, I should be able to master both the Heavenly Purification Energy and the Earthly Purification Energy….’
It really seems like I can reach six stars.
Finally, I’ll be able to advance to my true martial art, the Heaven-Earth Infinite Divine Art.
The martial arts side was slightly harder than stats for breaking through the first barrier, but I was ready for it.
These past few months of waiting to internalize the techniques—they were all for moments like this.
The High-Grade Magi Stone harvest had been quite generous too.
‘For a while now, I can invest Magi Stones more boldly when using the Universal Cooking Skill.’
It’s thanks to the unique nature of a drop-type Dungeon where there’s no competition.
Ju Do-gyeom was smiling with satisfaction when it happened.
“Wow—!”
Kim Han-ryul, who had been following behind him with an exhausted, vacant expression, suddenly spotted something and cried out.
Then she asked,
“Um, what’s that, Team Lead?”
What she was pointing at was a gleaming azure forest rising in a fairly large, rounded mound on one edge of the plain.
Ju Do-gyeom spoke.
“The Rest Area.”
Their first destination had finally arrived.
* * *
As the Purification Flowers would suggest, the Erosion Zone within the Eroding Plain Dungeon wasn’t a place designed to forbid Hunters from attempting it.
It was simply designed so that ignorance would be your undoing.
From the outside, it appeared as an azure-gleaming forest—the Rest Area existed in that same sense.
Kim Han-ryul, arriving here for the first time, let out exclamations in succession the moment she stepped inside.
“Wow, what is this? There’s a lake? And a campfire too. My goodness. Team Lead, that thing over there—is that, an animal? A bird?”
“Yes.”
Ju Do-gyeom nodded and sat down on one edge of the clearing.
‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been here.’
He understood Kim Han-ryul’s feelings.
The Rest Area she’d barely reached after exhausting herself gathering Purification Flowers and running from waves of monsters she couldn’t handle alone.
The sense of relief from those days—it had never faded.
“How can it be like this? Only here feels like a different world.”
“It could be. We’re inside a Dungeon, after all.”
“Ah…….”
A Dungeon.
Commonly called that by the System’s official designation, yet a world whose mechanism and creation no one truly understands.
It’s not strange at all for an entirely separate world to unfold within it, bearing no relation to what came before.
“It’s really amazing. The atmosphere is such that a little cottage wouldn’t seem out of place…… Say, could you maybe cut down those trees and build a house?”
“Possible. But the Rest Area’s active time would shorten proportionally to what you cut.”
“……I shouldn’t even dream about it then.”
Ju Do-gyeom gave a soft chuckle and nodded.
“It’s actually more generous than it sounds. About an hour per tree.”
“When you put it that way, it sounds incredibly generous. There must be dozens of trees just around here…… Oh, but there’s no Purification Flower in here?”
“Doesn’t need to be. No Erosion occurs inside here. Though in exchange, the Growth Bonus effect also disappears.”
“That’s disappointing. Though I suppose if just staying in places like this and waiting around gave you stat increases…… the System would hate that.”
Rewards given in proportion to hardship, but the Dungeon and System don’t favor free rides.
Kim Han-ryul understood that much and reached toward something.
Whooom—!
After a brief moment, a Bunker appeared—larger than before.
A medium-sized structure for both of them to use together.
It cost three inventory slots, but for circumstances like these that commonly arose in Dungeons, there was no better Materialization.
Kim Han-ryul, who had created it, sat down beside Ju Do-gyeom and spoke.
“I’ve been curious about this for a while. Is it okay if I ask?”
…….
Ju Do-gyeom nodded without speaking.
Kim Han-ryul, her expression tense, pressed further.
“How do you know all this information that’s never been made public?”

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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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