The Second Coming of Gluttony - Chapter 128

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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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Chapter 128. Seol Jihoo (5)

He didn’t need to look to know what the sound was. The moment his balance shattered, the Orc Champion had swung its Battle Axe.
The Disc Shield barely deflected the blade again, but the shockwave sent every strand of his hair whipping backward.
A razor-sharp wind cut through the gaps in the shield, carving the air with merciless pressure that clawed at eyes and nose. Seol Jihoo squeezed his eyes shut against it.
When he opened them again, he realized his body was airborne. Like a car reversing desperately, he flew backward in a wild tumble before slamming hard into a wall.
Bang!
“Ugh!”
The impact ruptured something inside. Blood sprayed from his mouth. Through the haze clouding his vision, he saw the Orc Champion already closing the distance, its Battle Axe raised for another strike.
That was when it happened.
Crack-crack-crack!
The sharp ring of a chain sang out, aimed at the monster’s throat. As the Chained Sickle arced toward its neck, the Orc Champion didn’t even turn—it simply flexed its forearm and batted the weapon aside.
“Tch.”
The Giant Warrior clicked his tongue and yanked the chain back. Then came a volley—a dozen arrows in quick succession. The Orc Champion, determined to finish off its insignificant prey, was forced to retreat, grinding its teeth.
Wait. Reinforcements? But there were none before.
Sniff-sniff-sniff?
The creature’s nostrils flared as it swept its gaze across the rear. Only when it spotted the old Orc lying headless did it grasp what had happened.
While it had focused on what it thought was the stronger foe, the Orc Shaman had been assassinated.
Watching Kazuki slip away swiftly, the Orc Champion snorted with heavy breath.
“Get him out of here, now!”
The Giant Warrior roared, spinning his chain. Lara Volf, advancing under the cover fire, seized the convulsing youth’s leg and hauled him back desperately.
Meanwhile, Seol Jihoo’s vision remained locked in chaos—a scrambled television screen filled with static. He perceived almost nothing of what was happening around him.
“Concussion and shock symptoms… we need to treat him, now!”
A soft voice reached his ears, distant and muffled.
“The Orc Champion’s power is beyond imagination. How can we manage this?”
“I’m sorry. While we’re in the Banquet space, I can’t exert strength above High-rank.”
“But you used your Wish…!”
“Once someone clears the Banquet, they can never enter it again. With my Wish, I barely twisted the rules, but there are still restrictions on my abilities….”
Meaningless fragments of dialogue drifted past him.
“First.”
He felt a warm hand cradling his face. A familiar warmth bloomed through his senses, and his vision began to focus. Seol Jihoo’s eyes fluttered open, and Kazuki’s face came into view.
“You all right?”
Seol Jihoo pushed himself up. His entire body was drenched—he’d thought it was blood, but it was sweat.
When he shook his head, cold sweat dripped down. His limbs felt heavy, weak.
It had been a brief fight, but one where he’d been driven back relentlessly, burning through his stamina. As he felt along the ground for his spear, Kazuki spoke.
“Don’t worry. That man you saved—he’s got surprising skill. He’s holding the line with the Wheel Formation right now.”
Seol Jihoo grasped the situation quickly. The enemies’ momentum had dropped sharply. Their eyes had returned to their normal red.
Most importantly, the old Orc in the rear was dead. He’d wondered why it wasn’t helping—it turned out it had been assassinated.
Kazuki placed a hand on the youth’s shoulder.
“You’ve done well. You held firm. Because of you, we’ve gained the advantage.”
This was no flattery. The priest’s support had been invaluable, but in the end, it was Seol Jihoo who’d drawn the enemy’s attention and met it head-on. That’s what had allowed them to kill the Shaman without the Orc Champion noticing.
Caution was premature. Most of the Orc warriors still lived, and the Champion remained unbroken. Even with the priest’s aid, five or six of them—the Giant Warrior among them—were barely holding their own with the Wheel Formation. The creature’s power was truly formidable.
In fact, the Orc Champion’s strength was High-rank or better. Only a truly High-rank fighter like O Ra-hee could stand against it at all.
Even she couldn’t guarantee complete victory—”we might win” was the most she could promise.
No, he couldn’t deny it: he’d done well. But what people expected from him now was no longer that of a Level 3 warrior.
“Can you do more?”
Kazuki had to choose his words carefully, knowing full well what kind of pressure came with facing that monster alone. Seol Jihoo trembled.
Every human carries primal fear. Seol Jihoo was no exception. The relentless rhythm of the twin axes, the wind-wielding ability, the relentless pressure that left no opening—he’d felt it all firsthand, and the terror was visceral.
Part of him wanted to dump it all on Kazuki—to run, saying he’d paid his dues already, that Kazuki should handle the rest.
But he couldn’t do that. If he did, he’d be no different than Audrey Bastler, whom he’d rejected.
He was the one who’d brought these people into this place.
He was the one who’d agreed to send Cheon Cho-hong, their trump card.
Whatever the process, he was ultimately responsible for leading 110 people here.
“Kazuki.”
He had to earn the trust he’d been given.
“I can’t hold out long. We need to end this in one decisive strike.”
Seol Jihoo accepted it inwardly. That monster couldn’t be faced alone. He needed to borrow strength.
“A final showdown with your ultimate technique, then.”
“Yes. Can you create an opening for me?”
Kazuki, who had been nodding, suddenly turned his head. Seol Jihoo, having regained his composure, watched the Orc Champion with steady eyes, already in position.
“…I can do it once.”
Kazuki threw down the Crossbow and drew his bow—a Deep Purple Long Bow.
“I used two arrows dealing with the Orc Shaman… so I’ve only got one left.”
He nocked a spear-length arrow to the string and continued.
Even as he spoke, several were risking their lives to buy Seol Jihoo time to recover.
There was no time for hesitation, no room for delay.
“Going.”
Kazuki raised his bow.
Seol Jihoo clenched his jaw. Looking back, he’d been far too passive. The Orc Champion was powerful, yes, but he’d let fear paralyze him, unable to draw on his full strength. From the moment he first saw it, he’d been intimidated, fleeing in panic.
[Don’t forget. Training is combat.]
‘Master.’
Recalling Jang Maldong, Seol Jihoo seized the spear, forcing his surging Mana under control.
“Go!”
Ping!
The moment Kazuki released the string, Seol Jihoo burst forward like a beam of light.
The long arrow soared into the air, then glided like a bird in descent.
The Orc Champion was seething with fury from head to toe. Insects were insects, no matter how many gathered—but how infuriating that disc-like barrier kept stubbornly interfering whenever he tried to accomplish anything. He was seconds away from losing his mind.
Whish!
Suddenly, a chill accompanied a sharp whistling sound.
The Orc Champion glanced at the sky and immediately leaped backward. To the untrained eye, it looked like he was dodging the arrow’s path.
By all reason, an arrow’s trajectory, once fired, cannot change.
But High-rank existences possess the ability to overturn reason itself. The arrow that had been plummeting downward suddenly twisted violently, as if alive, just before striking the ground.
Then, in a smooth arc like a swift dipping over water, it rushed toward the retreating enemy.
The massive projectile succeeded in pursuing its target, just grazing the Orc Champion’s Achilles tendon before embedding itself, while Kazuki’s Short Sword slashed across the right shin, cutting through in the same breath. He’d exploited the moment when the enemy’s focus was on the arrow, launching a surprise attack with a time-lag offense—both legs struck to lock them in place.
Kazuki thought they’d succeeded and turned his head, blinking.
But the creature wasn’t even paying attention to the arrow anymore, let alone to Kazuki himself. It simply stared ahead in silence. And come to think of it, the arrow’s impact point seemed slightly off-target, and the Short Sword’s cut felt shallow, almost grazing.
When Kazuki saw the monster’s eyes flare yellow like a beast’s, he realized his mistake.
The Orc Champion hadn’t jumped back to dodge the arrow. It was the opposite. It had sensed that Seol Jihoo was waiting and, cunning as it was, retreated only to minimize damage and gain momentum.
As if mocking him for finally understanding, the moment its right foot touched the ground, it drove hard into the earth.
‘No.’
Watching the Orc Champion lunge forward like a long-jumper, Kazuki berated himself for the miscalculation.
He shouldn’t have killed the Orc Shaman. Better to have kept it in its madness, even if it meant sacrificing raw power. It was weaker, yes, but it had also regained reason.
That wasn’t the real issue. A monster of the Orc Champion’s caliber, if it had grasped the plan, would have already calculated everything that followed.
It had already closed within the shield’s range, and they had nothing left to trust but the Disc Shield. But wouldn’t something that had suffered from that shield all this time be watching for it?
No matter how he looked at it, the situation was hopeless.
The moment Seol Jihoo entered, he would die.
“Don’t come in!”
Kazuki screamed until his throat burned, but Seol Jihoo was already charging from the point where Kazuki had broken through, his final Festina Earring already activated.
Yet when the Orc Champion, whom he’d thought was retreating, suddenly surged forward as if it had been waiting all along, he was thrown off balance. He’d planned to close the distance and plunge a fist wreathed in Aura straight through the creature’s chest, but it closed the gap with a slick slide, its expression utterly unmoved.
As if it had known all along. As if to say: I’ll shatter you first.
By the time Seol Jihoo had registered the situation, as he had before, the Orc Champion was already in motion.
It watched the path where the Disc Shield would form, leaving room to alter its trajectory.
The attack remained unreadable. Only the wind’s force made his hair flap, giving him a glimpse of what was to come.
His mind went blank. His vision was flooded with blinding flashes, his eyes glazed.
“Ah…”
Death.
That’s what he thought in that instant.
[Don’t forget. Training is combat.]
The steady voice cut through his mind.
[Don’t train like some brawler, fool. Use your head.]
In that moment, the glare directly before his eyes suddenly looked like a log—an optical illusion.
[Likewise, I told you not to leave your ground. I never said don’t move.]
As the enemy’s right arm descended, Seol Jihoo instantly threw his body down and to the left at a diagonal.
[That’s it.]
The sharpness scraped past his shoulder, missing by inches.
The Orc Champion’s face remained as expressionless as before. He wasn’t holding just one weapon, after all. As if to ask, what good is dodging?—it brought the second Battle Axe crashing down on the crouched figure.
In truth, Seol Jihoo barely understood that he’d survived the first strike—there hadn’t even been time to sense the arm’s movement.
Yet he felt it instinctively: this wasn’t over. Kazuki was rushing toward him with a terrified face, and above all, he felt the needle-sharp prickle against the back of his neck, vivid and clear.
His mind emptied even as his body moved.
Following what he’d learned. Following what instinct demanded.
The moment Seol Jihoo straightened his waist halfway, he reflexively dropped his body diagonally to the right.
Whoosh!
Was this what it felt like when a whirling saw blade grazed past by the barest margin?
[Yes. That’s it.]
While onlookers felt their blood run cold, Kazuki’s charge came to an abrupt halt. For this single instant, shock painted itself across his face so completely that he seemed to forget everything else.
“What the—”
The first strike was one thing.
But the second attack that followed immediately was a different beast altogether. No matter how he looked at it, the trajectory was absolutely impossible to evade.
The timing was exquisite, and without eyes in the back of his head, there was no way to know the path it would take.
Yet he evaded it. As if performing a trick, his body twisted left and right in succession, letting the blow pass with nothing more than a paper’s thickness of clearance.
Even having watched it directly with his own eyes, disbelief shone plainly across Kazuki’s face. As if he’d moved using Intuition itself….
“Impossible.”
Kazuki’s mouth fell open.
‘Intuition?’
A power that those without talent could never attain even if they dodged logs a thousand times ten thousand times—a supreme ability granted only to an extremely small number even among the talented.
The spectator was shocked to this degree; what must the combatant himself be feeling?
The Orc Champion, whose arms had suddenly crossed downward, wore bewilderment plainly across his face since the battle’s start. He’d feinted with his first strike in anticipation of a Disc Shield being generated, but no—the insect before him had clearly shown no real skill.
While shock seized both foe and ally alike, Seol Jihoo was caught in an equally strange feeling.
More precisely, he was feeling the wind that accompanied the path of the wrathful axe swing he’d just dodged.
Like the ripples he’d felt floating on the Lake—he focused with a state of no-thought on the wind currents that swept across his entire body.
[The Bow Body Bullet Shadow is an ability that uses the entire body, so it’s more apt to call it a body technique rather than a footwork technique.]
Conveniently, his body was already crooked and tensed.
[The key is generating it with minimal magical power.]
Fearing this sensation would slip away, Seol Jihoo unconsciously summoned his mana and began adjusting it.
He split the great trunk into dozens of fine strands, spreading them lengthily and evenly through both meridians and minor vessels. The moment he wove the energy together tightly like a well-spun web, Seol Jihoo’s head finally snapped upright.
Beyond the scattering sweat drops, he saw the Orc Champion looking down with trembling eyes. As Seol Jihoo unfolded his body and straightened his waist, a brilliant light burst from both his pupils.
Boom!
With a deafening crack, the spear Seol Jihoo thrust forward—no, his entire body launched forth like a released spring.
Crunch-crunch-crunch!
The Ice Spear shattered through armor and drove deep, lodging with a sickening twist in the creature’s ribs. The monster’s maw fell open.
The Festina Earring combined with the explosive power of Bow Body Bullet Shadow. And delivered with such violent force at this close range that for even an Orc Champion to respond immediately was nearly impossible.
A sharp pain flared in his side, but the creature clenched his teeth instead of screaming.
Not yet.
Something unexpected had happened, but he was not defeated. An injury of this degree could be endured. His weapon still remained in his grasp, and his opponent was within striking distance.
A fragile human would turn to pulp with just a casual swing.
He tried to force the Battle Axe upward with a growl, but his forearm moved sluggishly. The Giant Warrior had already wrapped the Chained Sickle around it and was pulling with all his might.
Roooooaaaar!
Yet even then the Orc Champion wouldn’t yield, and in desperation he released the Battle Axe from his right hand, gripping the spear embedded in his body as he felt the possibility of escape taking shape—it was then.
Suddenly a bluish spear filled his vision.
Thud!
Blood erupted from his nose. A Mana Spear Throw struck him without warning, snapping his jaw back so violently that his helmet tore free and flew away.
Even the spear shaft he’d managed to grip slipped through his fingers. The creature made a gasping sound as his head fell heavily forward.
What appeared next in the Orc Champion’s eyes was the Ice Spear, trailing pale fire.
Perfect.
It was such a cleanly beautiful thrust that goosebumps rose unbidden.
Squelch!
The spearpoint pierced through the Orc Champion’s breastbone and emerged from his back.
His throat convulsed sharply, and blood spilled in great gouts from his mouth.
The strength that had seemed sustainable drained from his lower body. His legs buckled, yet his fierce eyes remained alive.
The gaze he fixed upon his opponent was no longer that of one looking down at a minnow. He stared clearly at Seol Jihoo, as if to remember who it was that would grant him his final moment. Seol Jihoo withdrew the spear and swung it.
A moment later.
Separated from the body, the head flew through the air and rolled across the ground.
Seol Jihoo breathed heavily, his eyes wide as he watched the corpse slowly collapse.
Thud!
The massive upper body fell, and the earth shook with its impact.
At last, the Orc Champion had fallen.
And.
The Orc warriors, having confirmed their commander’s death, erupted into chaos.
There was no other way. The difference between an Orc Warrior and a Champion was stark—like comparing a common soldier to a general commanding an entire army.
Yet a general who commanded absolute trust had just been executed by someone who ranked barely as a centurion, if that. How could the shock not ripple through their ranks?
Hesitant retreats became the norm; some even dropped their weapons in the chaos.
Kazuki’s fists clenched. Ever since Seol Jihoo had dodged that second attack, a chill had crawled down his spine—one he couldn’t shake.
“Seol!”
So he raised his arm high,
“Seol Jihoo of Carpe Diem has felled the Orc Champion!”
and cried out at the top of his voice.

(To be continued)

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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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