Dungeon Hunter - Chapter 35
Chapter 35: Episode 9. Krathra and Krithli (3)
“Tra-la.”
It was in the middle of a secret garden.
There were a variety of flora, including dark grass, trees, and flowers, all together making a great harmony.
The garden had a different vibe from the rest of the dungeon. It was also Lyhee’s favorite place, and she treasured it.
Lyhee had pilfered points without getting caught by the Dungeon Master. Using the stolen points, she created this beautiful garden.
Changing the geography and structure of dungeon took quite a lot of points. As a result, Lyhee spent a whole year just decorating it.
Lyhee arrived at the corner of the garden. She approached the apiary and sang a song.
“Ma, Ma, Master has~ two big weapons~”
She was referring to Dungeon Master’s ‘thing’ that was one of the blessings of Paranormal, which was ‘infinite energy’, made larger than before.
Out of the two weapons that she said, one was the weapon that the Dungeon Master wielded in his hand, and the other was the weapon that was swinging in his groin.
Singing the weird song, Lyhee greeted the hardworking honeybees that were busy making honey.
Hi, yummy honey?
The honeybees crouched as though they were responding to her greetings.
Lyhee so glad to find that her Dungeon Master regained his consciousness that she accidentally informed him that she was beekeeping. However, whatever she told to the Dungeon Master did not matter to her now.
She led a lif style where she did not care too much about her far future.
“Lala!”
The humming was over yet.
Lyhee started to stare at a place.
Where she glazed stood a blood tree which had a hole in the middle.
Inside the hole were lumps of honey that the hardworking honeybees created.
Lyhee took a look at all of the lumps and took out the one that looked the most delicious.
The lump of comb flew behind Lyhee, dripping honey. Lyhee then turned her body and started to move.
“Master has two weapons!”
Recalling the two big weapons that Dungeon Master was swinging after he lost his mind, Lyhee found out that her face was flushing.
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I focused my eyes and stared at Krathra, who was standing in front of me.
“That is ridiculous.”
Then I laughed hard and clicked my tongue.
As I expected, Krathra came to the top floor and begged for a bottle of Elixir as soon as he saw me.
He did not beat around the bush and went right into it.
However, Krathra could not be more serious.
“I know I am asking for too much. However, if you would grant me a bottle of Elixir, I would be your loyalist servant, Dungeon Master.”
Krathra fell on one knee.
It was worth paying attention to how much Krathra had grown.
He had become on a par with any of the twelve dukes in terms of his strength.
However, that was about it.
Did he not know how to use his head? Was that for decoration? Now that I bought him out from auction, he must use every bit of himself for me.
He was trying to trade what I was granted with the precious Elixir.
I had never heard of such ridiculous humor.
“You? You are going to help me? Haha!”
Of course, I could not be encouraging.
I was expecting more from him, hoping that he would be clever enough to bring something interesting to offer.
Krathra was one of the 100 strongest monsters in his previous life.
I did not doubt that he would show his abilities and that he would satisfy me.
He would be mistaken if he thought I would be moved by his pledging loyalty to me.
Krathra must have thought that I underestimated what he was worth. He then started throwing out words passionately.
“I am as strong as Death Knight or Dark Warrior. I once fought two Ogres simultaneously and beat them. I also chopped off a Qin vampire’s throat. If you use me well, I can be a good sword of Dungeon Master’s.”
The Dark Elf indeed had stellar achievements.
Sneering, I asked the Dark Elf, “Now you tell me you can be my sword. Then I will ask the sword…can you slaughter all the Dark Elves from your village, including Julium?”
“What do you mean…?”
Krathra’s eyes widened out of surprise.
The slightest reluctance that Krathra showed just now meant that he was not qualified to be my sword.
A sword must obey its owner; when the owner wants to swing it, it should be swung.
The sword must not have any doubts.
I stopped laughing and tightened my face. “Julium dared to lie to me. He sympathized with Krithli, who became the scapegoat of vampires, and he made a deal with the Spirit of Dark. His words are complete nonsense. Do you think I would fall for the lie?”
“You are mistaken, Dungeon Master! It was never a lie…”
“No?”
“Yes. The Elves in our town had relied on each other for a long time. Especially Krithli, who was born weak…”
“Ha!”
Krathra shuddered as I snorted loudly.
I opened all my mana to pressure Krathra.
In a nutshell, if Krathra did not want to let me know the truth, at least he should change his attitude.
‘So you are going to take the hard path.’
I wanted to take it easy and talk it out, but Krathra refused my offer. What could I do?
I gave him a chance, and Krathra kicked the chance away.
I needed to discipline him in the proper way.
I told him in a rather heated tone, “Krathra, you gave up your last chance. You spit at my generosity and threw it on the floor. If you told me the truth at the last minute, I would have still trusted and reconsidered your loyalty.”
My eyes were full of anger and my voice was booming.
Anyone who saw me must have thought that I was truly angry, not pretending.
I wanted to find out the reason that Krathra was so protective of Krithli.
That was the only thing that I wanted to know.
I guessed that Dark Elves’ protective behaviors were somehow related to Krithli’s succeeding the blood of Jinma Dragon.
Otherwise it did not make any sense that the Dark Elves were so dedicated to Krithli.
The true reason could be useless to me. However, it could be related to Jinma dragon, the best of all magic dragons. And if so, who knows – it might benefit me.
However, Krathra betrayed my expectations and trust.
It is nonsense for a servant to conceal an important piece of information from his or her master.
No matter how much potential the servant had, such a slave was not needed.
Krathra needed proper guidance and punishment for his misbehavior.
I could easily make use of the slave sign, which was engraved on Krathra. My words had the power to make Krathra feel extreme pain, which was comparable to death. However, such a punishment would be too bland.
“Put up your weapons, Krathra. If you can stop me now, I will let you go this time. However, if you cannot, all the Dark Elves will die.”
I wielded my weapon, Anger, in my hands and got ready.
Kratha, a fine warrior, held his red spear up high.
When the options of titles were taken into consideration, the total abilities of Krathra was about 362. However, the total abilities of mine exceeded 400. The difference of 40 was indeed not small.
If I only considered physical abilities, I was superior to Krathra. In addition, I had learned a lot of combat knowledge. No matter how experienced Krathra was in combat, he would be no match to me.
Krathra, too, must have been aware of all these facts.
He started to swear and swallow his saliva just by looking at me from the other side. Krathra’s eyes also looked very nervous. All of these hinted that he, too, knew the large differences between him and me.
‘I have a good feeling, but…’
How about Krathra’s skills?
Could he show something beyond his potential?
I grabbed my sword and charged forward. Despite being the top dog in this situation, I had no intention of giving myself penalty for the sake of Krathra, the underdog. I would always try my best and would try to crush my enemy.
Cling!
Krathra managed to pull up his spear to block my sword. With a loud burst, Krathra wobbled a little bit. It was merely single clash between him and me. Krathra realized that he could not beat me in strength and started to accelerate faster.
The skill that Krathra tried to use was called ‘Demonic Spear Charge.’
He attempted to pressure me by spinning his spear like a whirlwind. I felt as though Krathra had several spears pointing at me simultaneously. It might have been problematic if I could not find the real spear out from all the fake ones.
Despite the flamboyant skills, he was still not at my level. The skill of ‘Demonic Spear Charge’ was graded rare. It could not close the gap in the overwhelming difference of abilities.
Cling!
Dump!
The red spear rolled over the floor.
I easily learned Krathra’s movements and distinguished the real spear from the fakes. It was a piece of cake to avoid the attack.
Krathra gave me a stunned look.
He must have thought that I would never figure out his skill. Krathra surely had never met anyone as strong as I was.
“Is this all you’ve got? Now you tell me you wanted to become my sword, only with this!”
Krathra came to his senses after I scolded him.
While clenching his fists very hard, Krathra’s eyes started to turn red. His eyes became similar to those of a reptile. He looked at me with his changed eyes.
His face skin turned into crusty black scales, and his teeth and fingernails became sharper and harder.
He was about to show the skill of the Dragon Burst!
It was Krathra’s skill that was graded unique.
“Krrr…”
Making a sound similar to a beast, Krasra threw a grudge at me.
I became very curious about Krathra’s condition and opened the Eyes of Mind to examine his status.
Name: Krathra
Job: Demonic spear magician
Title:
<ul>
This character possess the blood of dragon (R, strength +4)
</ul>
Statistics:
Strength 74 (+4) Intelligence 59
Agility 65 Health point 83 Mana 77
Potential (358+4/437)
Special note: Krathra has the sign of slave engraved in his body. He activated the skill ‘Dragon Burst.’ All the skills that this character had learned will be lost, and a new set of skills will be activated instead. The lost skills will come back once the skill of Dragon Burst is done.
Skill: The skills that Krathra currently have are Dragon Breath (U), Hard Scale (R), Sharp Attack (R), and Risk Detection (ExR)
Despite the skill of Dragon Burst, Krathra’s abilities did not change at all.
Instead, his skills had changed.
The skills that he previously had, which were Dragon Burst (U) and Demonic spear charge (R), disappeared and four new skills appeared.
‘The skill Krathra used– it is quite interesting.’
I had rarely seen Krathra fight in my previous life, and I heard nothing but rumors. For the first time, I learned that there was such a skill called Dragon Burst.
The fact that Dragon Burst would activate a new set of skills was interesting.
Gaining new skills would be advantageous when the user of Dragon Burst had not had a good skill set in the first place. However, if the user’s previous skills were better than the new skill set that came along with Dragon Burst, Dragon Burst would be useless.
I could not recall if Dragon Burst good or bad. It was somewhere in between, and it really depended on situations.
‘All I need to do is to watch out for the skill of Dragon’s Breath. Everything else would be hand-to-hand combat.’
I was very confident in hand-to-hand combat.
I grinned and readied my weapon, Anger.
At that very moment, Krathra started to move.
He charged towards my left side accurately and I took a step back to swing Anger. Krathra was moving forward at the tremendous speed when I swung my sword, but he managed to dodge it.
It seemed that he must have predicted how I would move.
‘I think he could have foreseen my moves because of the Danger Detection skill.’
After exchanging swords for a bit, I became more confident that Krathra was using Danger Detection skill.
In fact, he was always using Danger Detection skill.
However, that skill could not do everything.
I did not have anything like Danger Detection skill, but I could predict all of Krathra’s moves. On the other hand, Krathra relied on his feelings to predict my moves.
The difference between him and me was indeed large.
I continued to stab Anger relentlessly, and one successful hit would create unrecoverable wounds!
Rip!
“Ahh!”
Anger penetrated deep into Krathra’s chest. As blood burst, Krathra cried out in pain.
“Not yet…”
Despite the injury, Krathra’s eyes were still burning and he looked determined.
Krathra grabbed my sword and took a deep breath.
Huff.
I could hear something beating and sense a flood of mana.
I soon realized what was gathering mana.
It was the skill of Dragon Breath!
Krathra tried to use the skill of Dragon Breath. He attempted to use all of the mana he had in his body to invoke the skill.
Criccck!
My Lightning God Power went through my sword and stopped Krathra from properly gathering his mana.
The Dragon’s Breath was a fire type skill, and the mana I sent through my sword was a lightning type. Two different types of mana collided inside of Krathra’s body.
“Ahhh!”
Both skills got cancelled by each other, and the uncontrolled flood mana went wild.
Krathra got splashed by the side effects of the clash.
All the holes that Krathra had in his body were filled with smoke. His eyes were turned over. So much blood was oozing out from his body.
He managed to barely survive because of the blood of Dragon.
I took out my sword, Anger, and shook off the blood.
Then I said coldly, which must have sounded almost too cruel, “I won.”
Fifty Dark Elves came up to the top floor after my call.
As soon as they came up, the Dark Elves discovered the ragged Krathra and were surprised.
Krathra was the finest warrior of the Dark Elves!
They could not believe what they saw.
Krathra, unconscious, was lying on the floor.
It was evident that he was barely alive and had suffered greatly.
Then there I was, sitting on top of the body of Krathra and wearing a skeleton mask.
“You are too late.”
“We salute to our great Dungeon Master.” Juliam, sensing the awkward atmosphere, knelt on one knee.
The rest of the Elves then took the same posture.
“I think you are missing one?”
Juliam answered my question quickly. “Krithli’s condition got so bad that she could not make it to here. I would appreciate it if you could understand the situation.”
“I ordered all Dark Elves to come to the top floor. Are you not taking my words seriously?”
Julium seemed baffled. “Oh, no. You are our heavenly Dungeon Master and we certainly do respect your words.”
“Are you going to deceive me until the last moment? Listen.”
I got up from my seat and looked down at the Dark Elves.
“All of you tried to deceive me with your filthy little tricks. I have given you many chances to tell me the truth, but you gave all away. On top of that, Krathra was too weak and disappointed me in our combat. Now you are disobeying me. What should I do with you? You do not even deserve to be called slaves.”
Gulp!
The Dark Elves were nervous and gulped silently.
I released my mana, which activated the effect of the mask and terrified the Dark Elves.
The powerful mana was suppressing the Dark Elves’ shoulders, and they could not make any excuses.
They felt that as soon as they tried to speak out, I would chop off their heads.
The Dark Elves could not help but bow their heads down and shiver out of fear.
Everything was going exactly as I intended.
I wore a skeleton mask to bring about such a situation where the Elves were terrified.
I declared, staring down at the Dark Elves, “For that sin, you will pay with your lives.”
