WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Irevi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 103: At the Very Last
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I revealed some of my specs to the Community's Challengers while preparing for this World Raid.
At the same time, I learned a little about the specs of the Rankers I could compare myself to.
Just as I had guessed, my current specs clearly surpassed those of the Low-floor Rankers staying on the 25th Floor.
Of course, the limits of a Normal Class still put me at a disadvantage in areas like the variety of active skills.
But there was one part of my overall specs where I was overwhelmingly superior.
Resistance skills.
Skills I had acquired relatively recently, like [Anti-Magic Resistance] and [Spell Resistance], were not that impressive.
But skills like [Fire Resistance] and [Poison Resistance], which I had acquired early and steadily developed, were at a level that had no real comparison.
Apparently, even top Rankers staying on the 75th Floor or higher rarely had Resistance skills at this level.
There were supposedly a few Rankers with Resistances comparable to or higher than mine.
But even they did not seem to have such well-rounded Resistances across so many areas.
So it was not strange that the Serpent Dragon, whose main weapon was fire, could not land an effective hit on me right now.
Crunch!
My war hammer came down hard and crushed one of the Serpent Dragon's extraneous limbs.
“Graaah! You bastard!”
Having literally lost one of its extra limbs, the Serpent Dragon screamed in an ugly voice.
Perhaps that scream itself had a magical effect. The wounds across my body throbbed, and flames rose from them.
Mercedes and the Legion Commander, fighting at the front with me, were engulfed in flames as well.
But no flames rose from Eleanor, who was fighting in the rear as a Mage.
It seemed only wounds inflicted by that sword or the branches growing from its body could ignite. What a completely unfair pattern.
The fire itself was not that powerful, but wasn't this an unavoidable area attack that scaled with the damage it dealt?
If I hadn't had Fire Resistance, I would've cursed this bullshit pattern from every angle.
“Are you done showing off your tricks?”
I patted out the flames rising from my wounds, gripped my weapon again, and charged at the Serpent Dragon.
The Serpent Dragon recoiled and frantically extended branches, but the number of branches it could extend had noticeably decreased.
Its burning body was gradually shrinking too. It no longer looked worthy of the grand title World Boss.
Thunk!
A long spear pierced the Serpent Dragon's body, and it writhed in pain again.
It could not even properly struggle to escape anymore. Well, I had been beating the hell out of it one-sidedly for a while now.
I had countered every pattern it had desperately thrown at me, and it did not seem to have enough strength left to go wild.
“Let's finish this, you disgusting bastard.”
I signaled to the three behind me. Mercedes and the Legion Commander charged in with me, while Eleanor remained back.
Mercedes had greater striking power than I did, and that human Legion Commander was faster.
Compared to those two top-tier Non-Player Characters, I fell behind in both Mana Enhancement and basic stats.
Whoosh!
But things changed when Eleanor's support magic wrapped my body in a black shadow.
Fwoosh! Boom!
A blast of searing heat forced the other two back, but I could endure the flames.
The Serpent Dragon poured every burning branch it had at me.
Judging by its appearance and attitude, this was probably its final struggle.
I took the attack that was nearly impossible to evade head-on and stabbed the Serpent Dragon's painstakingly located Reverse Scale.
Splurt!
A red critical effect burst forth, along with red blood spraying from my body where the branches had pierced me.
My HP bar, which had nearly hit bottom several times today, was carved down to a dangerously low point once again.
Ignoring my dying body, I kept stabbing its Reverse Scale.
Thrust! Thrust! Thrust! Thrust! Thrust!
Every thrust triggered a critical hit, and every one of its attacks pierced through my body.
But after repeating that desperate exchange of thrusts several times, the one that fell was not me.
It was the burning serpent.
“Aaaaaaah!”
Thud!
It collapsed. Dust scattered. Then notification windows appeared before me one after another.
[You have defeated WORLD BOSS: Nidhgrak'Svarfbalnir, the Serpent Dragon That Devours the World!]
[Everyone will praise the Raid Party that achieved this great feat!]
[Raid Party Roster: Seo Jinhyeok (1 member)]
[Rewards will be granted to all Raid Party members who participated in the raid.]
The number of notifications scrolling up was enormous. There were too many to read one by one.
Even after receiving rewards like these, I felt neither the thrill of growth nor satisfaction.
Clearing the World Boss meant the farewell I had agonized over choosing had finally arrived.
“Anyway... we won.”
I stepped on the fallen Serpent Dragon's head and quietly declared victory.
“So this truly is goodbye, then.”
Eleanor, standing a step away, looked at me and gave a bitter smile.
* * *
After closing every noisy reward notification, I walked over to Eleanor.
“Now that we killed that thing, the quest should be over. But I don't know when my consciousness will disappear.”
Eleanor gave a small smile and joked around. Unlike right before the raid began, she looked relieved.
“It ends when you claim the reward. The reward has already entered the inventory, so it should be soon.”
“Hmm. So it gives us enough time for a final goodbye? I don't seem to have become an empty shell yet.”
“I don't know exactly, either. You saw it in my memories. It isn't something that happens often.”
Mercedes and the Legion Commander could not understand what we were talking about. They were both Non-Player Characters.
“But didn't we already say enough goodbyes?”
“I don't know. Can we really call that a goodbye?”
Leaving the two to react to the Serpent Dragon's corpse in their own ways, we moved a little away and talked.
“There are still many things I want to say to you, but I haven't sorted them out yet... I don't think I can properly put them into words.”
Eleanor sat down with a sigh.
“If I suddenly become an empty shell in the middle of talking, it'll surely cause misunderstandings. Perhaps it'd be better not to say anything.”
I thought the same. If we had an incomplete conversation and she suddenly became an empty shell, the shock would be unbearable.
Through those few words, we agreed not to have a separate final goodbye.
Since we didn't know when she would become an empty shell, we also decided to act naturally so it would not feel strange when it happened.
“We should sound the drums of victory and tend to the damage. You may leave in the meantime, or enjoy the victory.”
If I followed my heart, no, if I followed my resolve, I should leave immediately. If I were in slightly better condition, I would've left right then.
Apparently, even my regeneration had limits. After surviving near-death several times in a row, my recovery had slowed.
Maybe it was the backlash from continuing to use Mana Enhancement in this state. And the Pendant was a mess too.
Clink.
The Pendant that had let me use Mana Enhancement had completely broken during the intense battle.
Maybe it had not merely lost Durability but been fully destroyed, because even its item name and category had changed.
I had gained a lot from the World Raid rewards, but I had lost the all-important Mana Enhancement Pendant.
If I considered the items and Gold I had spent and ran the numbers, I might have ended up at a loss.
Though not everything I had lost could be measured in numbers.
* * *
After resting for exactly one full day, I headed to the Labyrinth Area to move to the next floor.
The Labyrinth Area itself had disappeared because of the World Boss Raid, but the Transfer Gate to the next floor was still here.
The Epic Quest reward had not been issued yet. The quest was marked as completed, but apparently it was still calculating my rank.
They said the reward would enter automatically once the rank calculation was complete, so there should be no problem moving to the next floor.
Since I had not claimed the reward yet, Eleanor probably had not become an empty shell.
I did not want to leave some lingering knot by saying goodbye again for no reason. That was why I came out alone.
“Well, I roughly saw what happened to everyone...”
Still, over the past day, I had watched what could be called an epilogue from afar.
Eleanor said she needed to learn more about the World Tree, so she decided to take the Serpent Dragon's corpse and begin researching it.
Mercedes said she would make a grave for the Prince, then try to lead the remaining High Elves, however clumsily.
I was not close enough with the Kingdom Army to have a separate conversation, but the Legion Commander gave me a recruitment offer before leaving.
They said I could come to the kingdom whenever I had nowhere to go. A person as skilled as me would always be welcome.
Of course, I would never return to the 9th Floor.
No matter how difficult or painful things became, I had sworn to keep moving forward. I could not turn back.
I would leave with just a little pride in having protected this world, and think of it sometimes when things got hard.
No, no. Pride? What right did I have to feel that? Forget it.
[Would you like to activate the Floor Transfer Gate?]
I activated the Transfer Gate to head straight to the 10th Floor.
Boom!
At that moment, a huge roar erupted in the distance and shook the sky.
Then I felt an explosive wave of power through Mana Detection. It was coming from the direction of the Dark Elf fortress.
What the hell was this? The Epic Quest was already cleared. Even after all that, it wasn't over?
I could have ignored it. The Floor Transfer Gate was still working, and the quest was already finished anyway.
But by the time I came to my senses, I was already running toward the Dark Elf village.
“Hey, what the, what the fuck is all this? You've got to be kidding me.”
What greeted me there was Eleanor, her stomach pierced through by an unidentified black spike.
Footnotes:
The Korean phrase translated as “extra limb” also means an unnecessary addition, creating a joke when the Serpent Dragon loses one.
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