Dungeon Hunter - Chapter 83

Chapter 83: Episode 22. Angels (3)

A few hours ago…

I fell into a deep dilemma after realizing that the “shop for everything” couldn’t be accessed on the dungeon’s top floor.

[Functionality of the Dungeon Core is restricted due to the appearance of the Dimensional Gate. The general store cannot be summoned.]

Message windows of similar nature to this continued to pop up.

“What a stunningly unfriendly system this is.”

It was a waste of time. If I was informed at the same time as the event notification, then it would’ve been at least somewhat tolerable, but by this point I had pretty much given up on the friendliness of this system – or the lack thereof.

The appearance of the angels during my previous life only happened a long time after I lost my dungeon. So, rather obviously, I had no way of knowing whether the store could be accessed or not.

Having a lot of points meant nothing. Now I could understand why many demons were tormented by the angels. Unless you made preparations ahead of time, you were bound to suffer miserably.

Basically, this was throwing salt on an open wound. However, I couldn’t remain in a panicked state forever. After quickly summoning the monsters, I left the dungeon alone.

The destination I headed directly afterward was the guild “Heaven’s Will”.

It had been a while since the last time I showed up here and gazes naturally landed on me, but I paid no heed. I went straight to the second floor and opened the door leading to the suite reserved for the Devil Hunter. The sight greeting me then was… every attack unit member on standby, with a giant TV in the middle.

“Uh? Unit leader?!”

Yoo Eunhye was the first to spot me and hurriedly ran over to me. Edward followed right after, sticking to her like a leech. Other members soon approached me as well and lowered their heads.

“Where have you… No, never mind. I’m not curious about where you’ve been to anymore,” said Lee Jihye as she spat out a lengthy groan. She had been leading the attack unit in my absence, and the dark bags under her eyes attested to all the hardships she experienced during that time period.

I asked her, “How many masks do we have in stock right now?”

“You mean, those skull masks? Well, this girlie right next to us, surname Yoo and first name Eunhye, deigned to order about five hundred of them, so our storage is choke-full of them right now.”

Yoo Eunhye pouted and defended herself, “You just wait and see. There will definitely be a shortage of masks later.”

Never mind all that. Five hundred, huh. I nodded my head and opened my mouth, “Take out all of them.”

Lee Jihye asked in puzzlement, “Where will you use them, though?”

“We will be aiding the angels. Our unit alone will not be enough, so post requests on the internet and to other guilds and gather people under the Devil Hunter attack unit’s name. It’s fine to use my name as well. Those who come to help us will put the mask on.”

“I don’t know about the regular awakened, but the guilds will definitely oppose it.”

The black skull mask was the symbol of the Devil Hunter attack unit, so it was unknown whether or not the other guilds would let their members wear one.

I urged her, “That’s why you need to make an announcement ahead of time. And time is what we’re running out of right now.”

“A massive scale of monsters is said to be headed here, so… Will we be alright?”

“If we can’t survive this, no one else will.”

My answer was kept brief. But, that was good enough.

The Devil Hunter was widely acknowledged around the world as the strongest attack unit in the country that best represented South Korea in the international stage. Its members were united in the pride of being part of such a unit, which was not that hard to see from how they took the initiative to shrug off the unfair label of the one-man attack unit by themselves.

“Understood. Even if I have to threaten the guild master, I’ll set everything up as quickly as possible,” said Lee Jihye as she licked her lips, her expression remaining tense. She had been unable to reach a decision on her own but my entrance must’ve helped in making up her mind.

By borrowing my name as the leader of the Devil Hunter attack unit, plus with the assistance from the guild master Kim Yongwoo, the task I had given her should not prove to be too difficult to pull off.

“I shall return in three hours’ time.”

I turned around to leave, prompting Lee Jihye to cry out urgently.

“Ehh…? W-wait a minute! Unit leader! You’ll definitely be back in three hours, right?”

Uljin, North Gyeongsang Province.

That was my next destination after leaving Gangnam. It took me only thirty minutes to get there by scything through the air and flying directly. Which was all thanks to my considerable Mana and speed stat value.

“Looks like I found the correct address.”

I slowly descended from the air.

Currently, a fog-type monster “Shade” was accompanying me. We looked as if our entire silhouettes were rolling pitch-black clouds. As far as external appearance was concerned, no one should be able to recognize me.

I scanned the area where the round-shaped structures could be found here and there. This was what the humans called a nuclear power station. Also, it was an aggregate of an immense amount of energy – a location where I could get my hands on an absurd level of electricity. I didn’t care much about the rest, but at least I had to give it to the humans and their technological prowess of building such things.

The roiling energy churning within the structure could be felt the moment I placed my hand on the thick cement wall. Although artificial, its nature still looked rather tasty to my senses. Especially the energy source right at the bottom-most location – I was salivating just from its mere existence. The Lightning God must’ve sensed it too, because it began moving around energetically as well.

“Originally, I was planning to get my hands on this several years later, but it can’t be helped anymore.”

Much of South Korea depended on the nuclear power stations for the daily necessities. If one disappeared in an instant, far too many humans would end up dying. Of course, it didn’t really matter how many humans died, but the real crux of the issue would be with the inevitable delaying of the awakened’s growth.

That was why I only planned to devour this at a later point in time. Around three years from now, humans would invent “new energy” from the monster cores, a power source that allowed them to live on without being reliant on these nuclear power stations.

I found this whole thing quite mystifying – to think that they would substitute such a massive scale of energy source with something completely worthless. You got cores by killing monsters inside the dungeon. Others suspected that there might be a connection between the cores and the flow of a dungeon’s magical energy. Since you didn’t get the cores if a monster was killed outside of a dungeon, that was the only “likely” hypothesis anyone could come up with, anyway.

However, a monster’s core was nothing more than rubbish for us demons. It seemed that some demons tried to perform some kind of research in the past, but that only resulted in a whole heap of points going down the drain, instead.

In any case… Seeking out this nuclear power station wasn’t a part of my original plan. Couldn’t be helped, with the situation being what it was.

“Lightning God. Devour it.”

The moment I uttered those words, the Lightning God leaped out. In the blink of an eye, it threw itself inside the power station, and as if it wasn’t even remotely interested in the generated electricity, it went straight to the “source”, instead.

The Lightning God’s massive maw split wide open and devoured the source in one fell swoop.

Almost immediately, a message window popped up.

[‘Lightning God’ now harbors immense electrical power. Electric charge of ‘1GW’ has been added.]

My brows furrowed ever so slightly.

“The efficiency is not that great.”

One gigawatt. That was only enough electric charge for the Lightning God to operate for one additional minute. Maybe because it was trying to absorb an external power source, the efficiency was absolutely the worst. However, this was still better than nothing.

Besides, there were several other power stations nearby. By paying a visit to all of the nuclear power stations in Uljin one at a time, the electric charge should rise even further.

While smacking my lips in anticipation, I quickly set off.

The result of stopping by at seven more power stations over the course of two hours was my electric charge level rising from “16GW” to “21GW”. Every time the power source was devoured, the efficiency dropped even further so the numerical value was lower than anticipated, but still, it should come in handy later.

Just as I was finishing my robbery of the last power station, a new achievement notice popped up to tell me the following:

[A so-so achievement! You have destroyed many key national infrastructure. South Korea will now suffer from a serious shortage of electricity.]

[You have earned 300,000pt.]

I quietly nodded my head.

Since I first began polishing up the power of the Lightning God, I expected such an achievement to show up sooner or later. Unfortunately, I had no place to spend the newly-earned points, but… as long as I navigate my way through this danger smartly enough, this points tally should prove to be a great help in establishing my superiority.

“Twenty-one minutes, is it?”

That was the length of time the Lightning God could be activated for.

If I only summoned it out whenever there was a pressing need, I might be able to stretch that time limit by a bit more, but still, I couldn’t use it for long.

Even if I rob other power stations, it was hard to foresee any noticeable rise in the electric charge level at this point. Meaning, I should start considering going back now. The durability of the dungeon’s barrier should be decreasing continuously even as I stood here.

“Looks like it’ll still be a little tough with just the Lightning God alone.”

The only method I could use to fight without revealing myself was sending out attacks using the Lightning God. This was because, even after camouflaging myself just in case, there was a very good chance I’d get discovered if I had to go all out.

But, what choice did I have?

For the current me, this was the best I could do.

I swallowed back my short sigh and flew up in the air once more.

<hr />

I quietly looked up at Hashumal in the sky.

The pure-white wings. The figure overflowing with majesty and dignity… The one blessed with a truly faultless external beauty. However, she was a fourth-seat Dominion, and the “messenger” of light.

The Hashumal from my previous life was a truly difficult being to contend with. Back then, she showed up with an even greater number of angels and for the period of no less than one and a half years, harassed the demons to no end. Forget about her other abilities for a second, just recalling her ridiculous recovery ability alone made my head spin.

Eventually, she ended up in two pieces by Archduke Ariel’s special all-out attack skill, ‘Abyss Sword’, but up until that point in time, she made many demons taste the kind of losses that couldn’t easily be wiped away.

“My skin is crawling.”

The previous me couldn’t participate in the ferocious battlefield. All I could do back then was to spectate the battle between the demons and the Hashumal from a distance. I was thinking of analyzing their combat capabilities and hit them from behind at the last moment, but… Looking back, maybe that was nothing more than me making some random excuse.

But at least at this moment, I was staring at Hashumal with a completely different perspective.

A chill ran down my back. To think that the level of divinity in her was enough to numb my skin!

I clenched my fist and immediately opened my Mind’s Eye.

Name: Hashumal

Job: Dominions

Title: * The one who carries the light (Epic, Intelligence/Mana+6)

Ability level :

Power 89 Intelligence 87 (+6)

Speed 87 Strength 83 Mana 92 (+6)

Potential (438+12/471)

Special Note: The fourth seat angel tasked with spreading the light to the world.

Skill: Spreading the Light (Epic), Countless Rushing Spears of Light (Epic), Thunder of Light (Epic)

[Comparison]

Hashumal

Power 89 Intelligence 93 Speed 87 Strength 83 Mana 98 Potential (438+12/471)

Randalf Bruciel

Power 93 Intelligence 77 Speed 88 Strength 86 Mana 96 Potential (392+48/500)

Even though the Fragrant Herb of Courage, Droplet of Victory, and the Bead of Fervor gave me +3 stat points boost, I was still trailing behind Hashumal in terms of the total ability level value.

Her total ability level was 450.

No matter how strong you were, there was a clear limit to what you could do alone, but… It was correct to call her the destroyer of the balance in the current point in the proceedings. She even possessed three Epic-grade skills, too.

Indeed, there was a good reason why the payout was five hundred thousand points.

“This must be my first time pitying the demons.”

The number of monsters that had gathered here reached nearly ten thousand. There were quite a few creatures I wasn’t sure about, but I had to wonder if most of them would get incinerated while fighting just Hashumal.

Even then, the demon side would walk away the winner in the end. The number of angels assisting Hashumal was simply too low. This was devolving into a race to see who’d inflict more losses to the other side first.

If any of the demons exhibited weaknesses now, then the issues would rise up after Hashumal was taken care of.

“Protect the angels!”

“Help the emissaries of heaven!”

The number of awakened rushing in was 500. Although their individual ability levels were nothing to write home about… In the current situation, this number was good enough to lend a tangible aid to one of the sides.

Uninvited guests had suddenly crashed the taut, uncertain tightrope-walking party between Hashumal and the demons, basically.

Yoo Eunhye let out a moan. “Unit leader, it’ll get much harder to distinguish anyone if we scatter!”

We might have made a pretty energetic entrance, but 500 people were wearing the same skull masks so it would indeed be impossible to recognize someone in the chaos.

“All of you, stay close to my side. We will deal with only the monsters that approach us.”

I didn’t know about the others, but I wasn’t planning to make big moves today. I had only one aim today – to hide among the awakened and achieve my original purpose.

I suppressed my magical power as much as possible, to the point that no one should be able to recognize me. I also sealed away everything else and only left the electrical charge alone.

“Turn them into charcoal, Lightning God.”

Sizzzzle-!

The Lightning God leaped out and asked.

Who?

I quietly pointed with my finger.

Kyah-ooooh!

The Lightning God let out a bizarre howl and rushed into the demons and the monsters.