CHAPTER 36: BOOM!

"Here’s another rose, Eliza."

"You disgusting vampire, stop trying to seduce the saintess!"

"Seduce? I’m only fulfilling my responsibilities as the hottest man in the world."

"Fuck you!"

Wrapping a blanket over his shoulders, Dante leaned his back against the wall and watched silently as Skylar argued with Maxwell and Selena for the tenth time tonight.

Skylar flirted with almost all the women—except Selena—because he believed that real men must always be romantic.

’He even tried to teach me, saying that I’m wasting the potential of my face. Wait... would some seductive performance increase the effect of my trait?’

Didn’t he have a trait that could seduce people? Was it a passive thing or could it be affected by Dante’s performance?

’Nah, even if I can increase its effect that way... it looks weird. I’m not that kind of person.’ Dante shook his head and ignored those thoughts.

Sighing deeply, Dante took a slice of meat from his storage and ate it. He had to be ready for what was going to happen tomorrow.

In the morning, Skylar and Selena brought all the villagers they could in their limited time. In the end, only 18 of them decided to help.

In addition to them, they brought two foreigners from a race called frost elves, and one of these elves was even Rank 2.

According to Skylar, the frost elves were living in tribes at the western side of the northern region.

Those elves were famous for having high cold resistance, having a high chance of getting Ice, Snow, or Water Aspect, and their love of fighting.

The moment Skylar told them about a demon, they didn’t hesitate to accept his offer without listening about the spoils.

’Well, more spoils for me, hopefully.’

Of course, their love for fighting wasn’t for no reason.

Unconsciously, Dante touched the mark on his head, remembering how the World Runes acknowledged him.

That, in fact, was a second method to earn Existence Essence.

’Extraordinary feats, they call it.’

Even after the class awakening, all the people could be acknowledged by the world runes if they did something that could be considered extraordinary.

According to Elizabeth, some were acknowledged after killing enemies from higher ranks, some were acknowledged for creating unheard-of spells, others were acknowledged for committing massacres.

No one knew what the World Runes were considering as extraordinary feats, but they knew only one thing.

The World Runes don’t care about good or evil.

As for what the acknowledged people would get, it depended on their luck.

Some people gained knowledge, some people gained relics and treasures, and most people gained tens or hundreds of Existence Essence.

That was why many people wanted to wander across the world instead of growing steadily.

That was why the saintess candidates had to make achievements on their own to be chosen.

That was why the frost elves were obsessed with fighting.

They all wanted to be acknowledged for different goals.

But that was really strange. What were these World Runes exactly?

’They’re giving people classes. They’re giving some of them strange marks and extraordinary classes. They’re ready to reward people for strange things like killing or crafting. They’re able to see everything and appear out of nowhere.’

Everything about them was strange.

What were their motives? Were they coming from a sentinel being or were they sentinel beings themselves? Were they even considered real beings or were they just mindless marks?

"Ha ha ha..."

All of a sudden, Dante heard a laugh on the other side of the window, but neither he nor the others had any intent to check it out.

They all knew it didn’t belong to a living human.

It was the night, and the mist was already covering the entire village.

Now, the homeless villagers, whether they were affected by the mist or not, were facing hell.

’Fafnir, can you come and kill this one?’

Fafnir, who was fighting relentlessly outside, rushed to the inn immediately and cut the monster in half with a single diagonal strike.

Without hesitation, Fafnir took the monster’s core out of its head and put the corpse on fire before running to the village’s edge again.

After a few hours, they’d have to fight the baron, so Dante was doing his best to make sure the baron wouldn’t even get a corpse to absorb.

Among the villagers was one with a strategist class. He asked everyone to share what they could do to make a good plan.

Of course, Dante only revealed his Shadow Aspect and Sorcerer’s Gift. Everything else was kept as a secret.

Now as he was waiting, Dante had to share this small room with Skylar, Elizabeth, and the holy knights. The room was so small and empty without even a single bed or chair.

That was the best thing the innkeeper could offer to help them. He had to somehow let everyone sleep in the inn, including the homeless villagers whom Elizabeth paid for, and those who refused to participate in fighting the baron.

’Tsk, Maybe I should buy a sleeping bag if it exists in this world.’

As Dante observed Fafnir, who was barely finding any monsters now, he began to think about his next spell.

He already had a good amount of shadow spells, so now he had to think of misfortune spells.

Judging by how no one understood his coin spell, he assumed that the Misfortune Aspect was extremely rare to be recognised easily.

In other words, it could be very effective as a trump card alongside his limited silver ether.

For now, he had only two misfortune spells.

The first — The Doomed Coin of Decisions...

’Ugh, I need a new name for this. The World Runes or whoever made this has no sense of naming.’

...was a simple spell to help him to make a choice and predict the misfortune of some things. He didn’t try to use demonic energy with it as he didn’t know what would change. Though Dante guessed it had a high chance to start detecting the blood-red luck.

The second spell — Jinx — increases the misfortune of the target. If used with demonic energy, it would increase the blood-red luck as well. Unfortunately, Dante didn’t understand that yet.

He only knew that the blood-red luck was somehow related to death. There was also a red color that he had seen a few times, but he didn’t know if it was as dangerous or not.

Dante glanced at Elizabeth’s Wheel of Luck, seeing all the different colors.

’If these colors are connected to both fortune and misfortune, then can I create them as well? Maybe even create these strange chains?’

Theoretically, it seemed possible. But to do that, he had to understand them first.

Unlike the wizards and the normal mages who could simply cast spells by chanting, a sorcerer like Dante had to understand everything about the spells he wanted to cast.

The chains seemed to be a kind of link between two individuals. Sometimes, they’d be just there, other times, they’d increase the intensity of a specific color.

Selena was linked to Elizabeth with pearl luck. The chain was stabilising the green luck that Elizabeth possessed.

Maxwell had the same thing, but he also had another chain with Selena.

’Maybe it’s protection?’

Wasn’t having someone to protect you a kind of luck?

’Maybe this color of luck reflects how Selena and Maxwell are ready to die while protecting Elizabeth.’

Dante remembered the pearl chain that Elizabeth shared with Skylar when she was protecting him, and that made him more certain of this theory.

’Does that mean Maxwell is ready to risk his life for Selena but she isn’t willing to do the same? I feel bad for that guy.’

Though there was another chain he had seen, which was the pink chain that Maxwell’s wheel was trying to send to Selena, but he didn’t have anything to help him understand it.

’If I made that pearl luck using my misfortune, what would the result be?’

If both fortune and misfortune were connected to these colors, then that meant all these kinds of luck could be either bad or good depending on the situation.

Maybe in Elizabeth’s case, she was considered lucky that she had people to protect her. But what if that protection was a curse instead?

’Didn’t Skylar say slavery exists here?’

If slaves were forced to protect their owner with their lives, then it would certainly be bad luck.

And if someone was ready to protect their slaves like protecting valuable goods, then it was also bad luck for the slaves.

After all, who would like to be treated as something to be bought and sold?

’Maybe if I tried, I might also be able to make a person’s misfortune affect only one specific luck.’

Dante almost let out a laugh at this idea. Didn’t he already have something similar?

Whenever he used Jinx with demonic energy, it would give both misfortune and blood-red luck together. This might be his best or only inspiration to learn directing the misfortune.

A soft smile tugged at Dante’s face: ’Fine, I’ll start with the pearl luck and the blood-red luck... and maybe the red luck too if it’s similar to the blood-red one.’

Making up his mind, Dante glanced at his companions.

’Wait, what?’

Their green luck was decreasing, while their blood-red luck, red luck, and misfortune were rising dangerously.

Out of instinct, Dante enhanced his body as he called: ’F-Fafnir, co—!’

All of a sudden, Maxwell and Skylar’s faces paled.

Without a word, Maxwell took Selena into his embrace and enhanced his body. At the same time, Skylar’s blood bottles exploded as the blood surged to cover him and Elizabeth while attempting to reach for Dante.

Crack!

A golden spear shattered the window and forced its way into the room, flying toward Dante directly.

In Dante’s vision, the world slowed down as his brain worked relentlessly as an attempt to understand this situation.

Suddenly, the spear started glowing brightly, illuminating the entire room.

’...Fuck.’

BOOM!!