Chapter 105. So You Raised a Monster
Three days since the close fight with Destrow.
“……Hoo.”
I finished the breathing method and opened my eyes. Outside the window, darkness had begun to settle in a hazy layer, and the Fourth Base Camp was quite noisy.
“Eat! Eat! Booze! Ain’t there more booze?!”
“Wahahaha! And then, so that bastard—get this……!”
“You bastard, shut up?! You’re the one who lost your sword and was running around like a headless chicken!”
A drinking party that had been going since around midday. The mercenaries had spread out and were washing away the tension and fatigue of battle with a cup of liquor.
Meanwhile, I sat alone in my room and checked my condition.
‘This body is really…….’
Rags.
‘They really did a thorough job wrecking it.’
A core thinned like paper. The circuits weren’t much different.
Was it serious enough to be fatal? Not quite…… but.
“It’s annoying.”
Recovering itself wouldn’t be that hard.
I just needed to rest for a few days and run the breathing method diligently. Add in some medicinal ingredients good for internal injuries, and it’d be perfect.
The problem was my mind.
Transcendence (超越)
A realm I’d tried to reach from my previous life all the way through this one.
And I’d only reached that realm a few days ago.
A person’s heart wants to immediately embody and internalize that enlightenment with their own body.
But this wreck of a body was grabbing my ankle.
“Tsk. If there was going to be a side effect like this, you could’ve at least mentioned it, huh?”
After dragging someone out of the water, they demand a bundle in return—yeah. That was me right now.
The Fire Seal (火印) did its best, and as a result I survived like this.
And not only that—Transcendence. I even broke through to that realm and took flight.
Of course, from the Fire Seal’s perspective…… I mean, if this grimoire had a personality, it might be bursting a blood vessel, but what can you do.
‘It’s your fate.’
Isn’t meeting your owner your destiny too?
If it picked me as its owner, it should be able to handle even a thief’s mindset like mine.
Anyway, as I grumbled at the Fire Seal, a fact I’d forgotten suddenly came back to me.
“You rotten thing—why did you tell me to capture Destrow?”
- Devour him.
It even kindly ordered me to eat him.
- I will suppress him.
It personally suppressed Destrow, who was about to go wild, and served him up for me.
So I beat Destrow down…… and then what was this?
“Nothing changes?”
No, it wasn’t absolutely nothing.
I stood up and went to the mirror.
My loosened lapel. Left chest. That is, above my heart—strange characters were engraved there.
Up to that point, it was the same as before, but the problem was the number.
“Two. It became two.”
While the original character sat there large, one more character was engraved a little distance away.
It hadn’t been there before I captured Destrow, so it meant Destrow had definitely influenced something……
“I can’t make heads or tails of it.”
I’d been thinking about it for days, but I couldn’t figure it out.
Just in case, I unfolded the breathing method, but no change came.
Could I, like during the fight with Destrow, turn into my previous life—meaning my prime body? I tried, but……
- Transformation? Idiot? Damn? Change?
It only left me with an embarrassing moment. Not even that, really.
“In the end, what I got…… was just one thing?”
- ……Fine. At least I acknowledge that will. The willpower worthy of Yeokcheon (逆天)’s choice as its master in this era……
Yeokcheon (逆天).
Destrow had clearly called the Fire Seal (火印) “Yeokcheon.”
Of course, since that bastard was an ancient fossil of a curmudgeon, what meaning would the term even have…… but still, you never know.
“Tsk. In the end, it all circles back to Lapiter.”
Still, it wasn’t like I had no gains.
No—objectively speaking, I’d have to say I’d gained more than enough.
Whether “Yeokcheon” was a gain or not, I’d only know once I dug into it…… but.
Transcendence (超越)
Just reaching that realm—by that fact alone, the trip to Hamelin Great Forest was meaningful.
Of course……
“……Even if my body’s in this state.”
And even if I recover……
“With this body, Transcendence? No way.”
Transcendence is a realm that acts across everything—mind and body.
Even if the mind is in the realm of Transcendence, if the body can’t support it, it’s useless.
If I forced it, I could draw it out, sure, but……
‘I’d die.’
So what did that mean, in the end?
“Now I really…… have to start building my body properly.”
This wasn’t about the proficiency of Magic Limbs (魔力肢體).
Sure, I’d keep refining Magic Limbs too, but more than that—the core.
I had to forge the core.
There were many methods.
Expansion.
Some famous houses (名家) expanded the core to increase its capacity.
Compression.
Others compressed the core instead, increasing the density of magical power. Of course, that method had died out.
And there were quite a few other ways to raise the core by one step.
‘There are all kinds of crazy methods.’
Splitting the core into two…… most of them died.
Or changing the core’s form. Or even stacking cores.
But in the end, the most stable method was expansion, and yet……
“I just don’t feel like doing it.”
When House Deculan trains the core, they combine compression and expansion at the same time—raising density while expanding again to increase total capacity.
But since I don’t know that method, I can’t easily imitate it……
‘In my previous life…… I barely managed to follow it.’
I almost died from side effects.
And that was only because I survived through sheer dumb luck—so trying it again now, I couldn’t even bring myself to.
“Is there really only one method left?”
The close fight with Destrow.
At the very end.
I remember clearly.
A single ring forming the heart. And the rotation of that ring. At the same time, a surging, overflowing control over Mana.
Circle.
I formed it with the help of Transcendence, but once you form it, the method stays clear in your mind.
“Heh heh.”
A laugh slipped out before I knew it.
“If I combine that…… with Deculan’s new Thousand Origin Art…….”
Paharen right now? A bastard like that isn’t a problem—he is…… he is…… he is a problem.
Even if I just reached Transcendence, no one knows how many more years it’ll take before I can wield full Transcendence.
And even if I do wield it, it doesn’t end there.
Paharen—that bastard had already reached Transcendence long before this point in this timeline.
“……Grrng, damn bastard.”
It’s within reach, yet still a gap so distant.
“Can’t a bolt of lightning just strike him down somewhere? ……Then again, he’s not the kind of bastard who’d die from lightning.”
Tsk.
As I clicked my tongue in pointless regret—
Knock knock.
Someone knocked on the door. I sensed the presence with half-lidded eyes.
No, honestly, I didn’t even need to sense it. I could tell who it was just by the voice.
“Are you in your room?”
The Archduchess.
The legitimate successor of the Archduchy of Lamburk. The future “Blue-Eyed Butcher”—the owner of that voice was the thoroughly insane woman.
‘At first, I thought she was just…… some crazy bitch.’
On the way back to the Fourth Base Camp after burying Shine, she suddenly asked me—
- Disciple, is teacher doing well?
Disciple? Teacher? I don’t have a teacher. So what teacher? I stared blankly, and she went—
- Rest assured. It is displeasing that you inherited Sakwol (朔月)’s proof in my place, but I fully acknowledge your ability. Of course, right and wrong must be judged separately with teacher.
Only then did I understand.
What misunderstanding the Archduchess was under.
Who the person she called “teacher” was, and why…… a streak of wariness flickered inside those arrogant eyes.
Back then, honestly……
‘It wasn’t…… surprising.’
Because I just thought she was a crazy bitch.
Beans grow where beans are planted, red beans grow where red beans are planted.
Just as Oberon is Riheim-sunbae’s disciple, it was only natural that Headmaster-sunbae’s disciple would be a lunatic.
And when I saw, in that face, the future…… meaning the young face of the “Blue-Eyed Butcher,” truly……
‘Still wasn’t surprising.’
For the same reasons.
Anyway, the one I thought was just a crazy bitch turned out to be not just crazy, but solidly, thoroughly crazy……
‘I need to raise a wyvern. Fast. I need to raise a wyvern.’
This was surely the curse of the wyvern I’d devoured in my previous life.
Anyway, I explained the situation to the Archduchess calmly and logically.
I was not Schwartz-sunbae’s disciple, and I had only borrowed Sakwol’s proof temporarily to carry out this task.
And then—what do you know?
She didn’t believe me.
- Hmm, claiming you speak falsehoods. I can understand why, but…… it is not pleasant. I will grant you time.
Time for what?
I couldn’t make sense of it.
Anyway, after that, she went quiet for a while. I don’t know what “time” she meant, but it seemed she was waiting in her own way……
“Hoo. What now?”
I let out a deep sigh and opened the door.
If it were anyone else, I’d have said I wasn’t here and sent them away, but crazies generally don’t communicate. So you have to deal with them however you want until they peel off and leave.
But why?
Creeeak.
“Hmm.”
Even with the door open, the Archduchess didn’t come in. Arms crossed, she nodded her head as if thinking.
For a moment like that.
Then the Archduchess, as if she’d steeled herself, spoke.
“First, I must apologize.”
“……?”
“I heard from Lord Muspellun. I thought you were speaking falsehoods, but that was not the case.”
After apologizing, she walked in without being invited, pulled out a chair, and sat.
“I could not understand it. Sakwol’s proof—what a precious thing it is. Would one lend it to just anyone? So I believed you were lying.”
And then she added, ‘If my other senior disciples had known…… they would have wanted to take it, even if they had to kill you.’
At that point, I couldn’t help being curious.
‘……Headmaster-sunbae. Just how did you educate your disciples?’
Sakwol’s proof—I didn’t know what it meant. But killing each other among senior disciples just to take it?
But wait.
Everything else is fine. Misunderstanding or whatever—relationships like that among senior disciples could exist.
But there was one part I absolutely couldn’t let slide.
“By the way, why am I still your ‘disciple’?”
“Let trivial matters pass. Isn’t the main point more important?”
“…….”
Sure. The main point is important. It is—but somehow, the Archduchess seems not to know what’s most important in the world.
‘……Do I need to teach her?’
I gently stroked my aching fist.
But I didn’t throw it.
Why?
Because I’m bowing to the authority of the Lamburk Archduchy? No. I do generally bow to authority, but anyway—no.
Because my body’s in bad shape? Also no. My creed is strong-strong weak-strong (强强弱强).
Strong to the strong, and strong to the weak too—that’s me.
Rather……
The reason I couldn’t throw my fist in the end was simple.
‘I…… underestimated her.’
I admit it.
I underestimated the Archduchess’s madness.
“My main point is simple.”
Before my fist could fly, she put the main point on the table first.
And that main point was—
“Will you not help me bring down one magi noble house (名家)?”
In other words, she wanted to bring down a magi noble house—like she was casually suggesting we rob a little corner shop.
‘……Sunbae, you raised a monster.’
They say blue comes from indigo yet is bluer than indigo.
A monster that surpassed Headmaster-sunbae was right here.
