Chapter 251 - Pioneering Africa (5)
The constant rush of monsters calmed down a little when night came and then retreated fully with the red sun rising over the sea.
‘How much HP have I accumulated?’
-You’ve acquired nearly 100 million only after stepping onto land.
There was a time when he was collecting and using HP by the 10,000s, but now he was earning it in the unit of billions a day. In addition, he was earning a considerable amount from the weapons he occasionally sold on the trading board, so even though his synchronization rate was still a bit insufficient, he thought it was enough to proclaim himself as a VIP member.
-For such members, there is a special sale! [Dark Mastery (S)] Skill Stone for only 1.5 billion HP...
‘I won’t buy it.’
The price had doubled after the rank had risen from A to S. Of course, he knew how important the difference in rarity was. Moreover, it was very suspicious that the skill stone appeared for sale at the time he had 1.5 billion HP. It felt like the whole universe, specifically, the admin and Tsukuyo, were hoping to teach that skill to Kang Shin-hyuk.
‘Should I just learn it now?’
Of course, Kang Shin-hyuk was also thinking that learning Dark Mastery might be good for him. Did it really make sense not to learn a strong skill because it seemed too middle schoolish? However, if he wanted to learn it, he wanted to find the highest rarity rank to do so. The rarity of his Light Mastery was already SSS-rank. If he didn’t get it at SS-rank, at least, he wouldn’t be able to handle it properly with his light.
‘No, even that’s too edgy.’
He let go of his thoughts on Dark Mastery and looked ahead. The monsters that had pushed them all night were now washed away.
‘They’re not coming now.’
-Everyone seems to think so.
The mercenaries were setting up on the enormous wall Stone Ground had built.
“Let’s all take a break!”
“We’ll take care of the boundaries!”
“The corpse recovery will start right away!”
Kang Shin-hyuk nodded and turned as Shin Eunah gently landed beside him. She had been firing off lightning throughout the battle, but she was still clean, without a drop of blood or dirt on her.
“Junior, let’s eat together.”
“Have you relaxed a little?”
“I took out my anger on the monsters, so I’m a little calmer...”
Kang Shin-hyuk was relieved at Shin Eunah’s gentle response, even if she didn’t realize that these questions and responses were the reason their relationship felt like a grandpa and his granddaughter.
“I also thought about it while fighting.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll keep a little distance from now on.”
“I hate it.”
Why was that the conclusion? That question was obvious in her eyes. However, Kang Shin-hyuk responded calmly.
“Because I am affected a lot by the synchronization rate. I didn’t say anything because I was afraid you would worry. So, for the time being, I’ll try to keep myself apart from you. Then it will be okay.”
-Hyaha, that’s a good idea!
Kang Shin-hyuk looked at Shin Eunah seriously, ignoring the administrator’s message. However, Shin Eunah shook her head with tears in her eyes.
“Then, it’s okay just to be a grandpa.”
“Senior, let’s be independent of each other.”
With the feeling this would be the last time, he reached out and brushed Shin Eunah’s forehead. Anvil was always sorry he hadn’t been able to give enough time or care for his daughter in his previous life. He felt that his child would hate his hands that were dirty from blacksmithing, and he realized that it didn’t matter, albeit a little too late. Those emotions were held in his heart as he touched Shin Eunah’s head, something he hadn’t been capable of in his previous life.
“When we’re completely independent, then we can return to a close relationship of a senior and junior.”
“...I won’t say anything either.”
Joy and anger warred on Shin Eunah’s face as she grumbled and pouted. Kang Shin-hyuk seemed to know roughly what he was thinking. Young children often said they would marry their father, but not she had started growing mentally a bit late, so she was only confused for a while. The kinder he had been, after becoming more aware of his previous life, the more her illusion had built up. If both of them accepted reality and grew up, then they could face each other and laugh without any worries.
“Still...”
Shin Eunah looked at him with tears still in her ears.
“We’re still eating together, right?”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
“Ehe.”
“While keeping a safe distance.”
“Safe distance...”
The atmosphere of their meal was straight out of a war movie. The camp wasn’t completed yet, so they put down a long table and sat down, eating either the meal served or something they had brought themselves. With large subspace artifacts, it was feasible for individuals to bring their own food for this expedition, although not everyone had access to them.
-Ah, ah!
“Hell, you can eat here. Right, how is it?”
-Quaaaaah!
Kang Shin-hyuk bought 5 kg of steak meat from the Hero Universe for Hell, who had gone through the sky devouring monsters with Eleanor.
“Mr. Puppeteer, did you know there is a competition between countries due to the distribution issue?”
“You can call me by name now.”
Bridget Poulsen intervened in the safe distance set between Shin Eunah and Kang Shin-hyuk. He had responded with a slightly bored voice, not particularly happy with her nickname for him.
“The Puppeteer is cool, though. Oh, are you shy? Really? So what do you think of the nickname Life and Death Puppeteer?”
“So, what are you talking about? Competition for food? Are they trying to serve each other delicious dishes?”
Bridget clicked her tongue as he relentlessly shot her down so he could eat.
“Cheh, that’s because there are superhumans in the cooking class.”
“Aha.”
Shinyoung didn’t have a curriculum for superhumans in the production field, but in fact, many superhuman training schools had a production department. It was certainly important to raise the superhumans in the production field, who greatly influenced ordinary people’s lives. Rather, production superhumans were often treated as precious, given their ability to craft artifacts.
“By the way, I was worried and baked a large number of sardine pies...”
“Ultra.”
Eleanor, who was quietly eating bread next to Kang Shin-hyuk, flinched away. Meanwhile, he was eager to see the sardine pie he had heard about, but Eleanor desperately held him back.
“I think the taste isn’t that bad. You don’t have to try it, and it’s not a very popular food in England...!”
“Ahahaha, why are you making desperate excuses? Actually, it was made by a chef from a different country, not England, to make fun of people.”
“Like you now.”
Eleanor stared as if she would kill Bridget, and Kang Shin-hyuk flicked Bridget’s forehead.
“Prank in moderation.”
“Wow.”
Next to Bridget was Shin Eunah, who showed pointlessly big movements at each of Kang Shin-hyuk’s small gestures, but everyone pretended not to notice. Then, Shin Eunah received a message and looked over at the party.
“After eating, we’ll organize a search team.”
“Finally.”
“By country.”
“I roughly expected it, but everyone isn’t afraid.”
Shin Eunah shook her head.
“Rather, it’s safer to organize multiple expeditions with an elite minority rather than to rush around. We don’t know how many monsters there are, so we need to move in a way that allows us to respond easily.”
“After finding out the status of nearby monsters through this search...”
“We will enter into full-scale subjugation. It will be dangerous, but it can’t be avoided.”
Shin Eunah calmly stood up from her seat, saying she would go to the meeting. Onyx jumped into her empty spot a second later. He had been entrusted with the mission of monitoring the head of Zeus, but now he had returned.
“How was it?”
-Myuuu, myu, myu.
The contents of the report weren’t much different from what Kang Shin-hyuk had previously identified with his wiretap. They seemed quiet after the terrible failure they faced, but they hadn’t given up yet. Their operation was to take place two days later; it was a stable plan to shake the superhumans first and take the mercenaries in the rear.
‘Humankind is struggling for the right to live, but they are siding with the monsters to create the strongest superhuman...’
For Kang Shin-hyuk, who believed that superhumans were born to fight against monsters, couldn’t agree with their goals at all.
-Well, maybe this is possible...
‘What?’
-I’ll tell you when I’m sure.
It was rare for the administrator not to be sure. He thought it might be important, but before he could pursue it, the submaster of Zeus, Yoo Jun-man, was approaching him. Kang Shin-hyuk stepped forward as if to protect the party, and Bridget trembled with excitement for some reason. Somehow, these days, she seemed more intent on him to capture Shin Eunah’s attention.
“Good morning, Shin Eun-hyuk.”
Yoo Jun-man greeted Kang Shin-hyuk as if he weren’t interested in the others, but the peculiar thing was that he stared at his shadow. Kang Shin-hyuk noticed and had a slight frown as he spoke up.
“What is it?”
“I picked up something you dropped, nothing else.”
What Yoo Jun-man surprisingly showed off as he spoke was the device that had been directly attached to him.
“...What is that? I’m not sure.”
At that moment, Kang Shin-hyuk wore a mask to hide his emotions. However, Yoo Jun-man laughed.
“Don’t you know? It was an item that gave off the same energy as you, so I thought it was something you lost.”
Yoo Jun-man laughed and broke it on the spot. If it had been possible to prove that it was his, it would’ve been possible to obtain better results without breaking it. Perhaps he didn’t know how to make it work.
“If not, it’s alright. I’ve pointlessly bothered you.”
“Okay. Things have been really annoying because of you these days.”
“I’m really sorry. I promise that this won’t happen in the future.”
Yoo Jun-man turned around and left. Onyx looked out from Eleanor’s shadow.
‘He knows that Onyx is hiding in the shadows, but he hasn’t figured out where he is.’
Likewise, he knew the sound collector belonged to Kang Shin-hyuk, but he broke it without being able to use it himself. Those suggested only one thing.
‘The enemy has help who can sense the spiritual power, and he contacted them recently, but they’re not together right now.’
-Your reasoning is really amazing. 1,000,000HP bonus... no!
When the admin tried to give him an HP bonus of a record level, another message appeared.
-Dimensional quest occurrence conditions are met, and the quest has been issued as the representative of the district.
‘Administrator?’
-Quest participants are selected randomly among applicants... The member ‘Tsukuyo’ is visiting Earth to fulfill the quest!
-Nooooo!
The administrator wept openly. Kang Shin-hyuk nodded as he felt a wind tickle past his cheeks.
“Whew, it’s a world with light mana. Oh my, Anvil!”
The nine-tailed fox had descended onto Earth.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺