WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Max-Level Swordsman of Fusionpunk ◈
Chapter 19
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The light swallowed Megabuilding 437 and tried to spread beyond it. But the force field did not let even a trace of heat escape.
Booooooom!
The explosion filled the rectangular enclosure.
The blue force field turned pure white in an instant. Even the light of the nuclear explosion could not fully penetrate the barrier and surged back inside.
Booooom!
The force field blocked much of the escaping light, so Kang Doseok was in no danger of going blind. Instead, a deafening roar echoed far and wide.
Ruuuuumble!
The penthouse windows shook violently.
Objects bounced on the sofa and table, and the lights hanging from the ceiling swung from side to side.
Inside the force field, crimson flames were now raging wildly.
The flames fell to the ground, then shot upward again. Thousands of flashes erupted, and tremendous blast pressure shook the entire force field.
But the force field did not collapse. The tightly arranged formation of shielding drones held firm.
Booooom!
The entire megabuilding, home to ten thousand households, was evaporating inside the force field.
Boom-boom-boom-boooom!
The pillars supporting the floors melted. The steel framework glowed red, then bent like soft taffy. The building, hundreds of stories tall, crumpled inward. Everything was evaporating before it could even collapse. The infected and citizens who had filled it must have been meeting the same fate.
Megabuilding 437 became one enormous fireball, filling the force field.
Ruuuuuumble!
Three million drones vibrated at once.
Blue ripples spread endlessly across the rectangular enclosure’s surface. Sections bulged far outward before returning to their original positions.
It looked dangerously close to bursting at any moment.
But the barrier held to the end.
Only after a long while did the explosion begin to die down.
The rectangular enclosure, which had glowed pure white, slowly regained its blue color.
Nothing remained inside.
Where the megabuilding had stood hundreds of stories tall, only black smoke and a few red-hot pieces of debris covered the ground.
A building that had housed tens of thousands of people had vanished without a trace.
Kang Doseok watched in silence.
Dark red rain struck the windows.
The blue currents roaming through the dark clouds were also slowly fading.
Shabel’s Storm was coming to an end.
* * *
Kang Doseok walked along streets where black water pooled.
An enormous purification vehicle moved slowly down the road, spraying a neutralizing agent. Contaminants clinging to the outer walls of buildings turned into white foam and ran down.
The wreckage of vehicles and drones damaged by the electromagnetic storm lay scattered throughout the streets.
The city’s electronic billboards were also coming back on, one by one.
[As of 6 a.m. today, Shabel’s Storm has officially ended its passage through Sector F.]
[The city government advises citizens to wear purification masks, as airborne contamination particles have not yet fallen to safe levels.]
The image changed.
Only an enormous crater remained where Megabuilding 437 had stood.
[Megabuilding 437, infected by Darkblood Warpsight, was completely incinerated by a tactical nuclear bomb.]
[Eighty-seven percent of the shielding drones used during the nuclear explosion have been recovered. No radioactive material or contamination particles have been detected outside the force field.]
[The lockdown of District 43 will remain in effect for the time being.]
Kang Doseok walked past the billboard.
‘The day after tomorrow, I think.’
That was when the city government would announce the results of its official investigation into the areas damaged by Shabel’s Storm.
The announcement would include a facility discovered in the eastern contaminated zone.
Kairos Biofields.
A biotechnology corporation that had disappeared a hundred years ago.
Shabel’s Storm had collapsed the ground in the eastern contaminated zone, exposing one of the underground laboratories the corporation had operated in secret.
The same thing had happened in the game.
After announcing the laboratory’s existence, the city government had sent an investigation team.
Players, mercenaries, and corporations had heard the news and flocked there all at once.
Kang Doseok intended to move before they did.
There was a star inside that laboratory.
A Skill Star for a sword skill.
Among those, it was one of the few with “Sword Art” in its name.
‘Windwheel Cleaving Sword Art.’
It was not a simple attack technique like Phantom Sword Dance, which was not bound to a particular sword art.
In game terms, it was closer to a passive skill.
Windwheel Cleaving Sword Art did not, by itself, launch wind or swing a sword.
Instead, it was the foundation for every technique that created wind by swinging a sword, then compressed that wind into blades and fired them.
A swordsman who had not learned Windwheel Cleaving Sword Art could not absorb sword-related Skill Stars associated with Sword Wind.
Even if they got their hands on those stars, they could not consume them. They would not meet the requirements.
That was also why so many swordsman players had turned their attention to the Kairos Biofields laboratory.
Of all the swordsman players in Netron City, only one would get to wield Windwheel Cleaving Sword Art.
People from spellblade families, which passed down their swordsmanship through the generations, could use similar swordsmanship without it. But they were not players. Kang Doseok had no need to concern himself with people who gained their power in a different way.
In short, the star Kang Doseok was after was the Windwheel Cleaving Sword Art star.
He stopped in front of a familiar building.
It was a high-rise with a smooth black exterior. Beyond the entrance was a spacious lobby with marble floors. Though the storm had only just passed, not a speck of dust was in sight.
Kang Doseok took the private elevator to the top floor.
When the doors opened, he could see all of Netron City below through a wall of glass.
At the end of a long corridor stood a plain silver door. As he approached, its lock released with a brief sound.
Click.
Beyond the door was a spacious, orderly office. Black-and-white furniture stood neatly arranged, and an endless forest of buildings stretched below the floor-to-ceiling window that occupied one wall.
“You’re here?”
Kabel’s voice greeted him. Kabel sat in front of several monitors.
The screens were packed with maps of areas destroyed by the storm and documents leaked from the city government’s internal network.
Kang Doseok sat in the chair opposite.
Kabel tapped a monitor.
“I heard you got 58 billion out of Cheongmyeong in the middle of all that chaos.”
“News travels fast.”
“It’d be stranger if I didn’t know, with that much money changing hands.”
Kabel leaned back in the chair.
“So you’re no longer enemies with Cheongmyeong?”
“No.”
Kang Doseok’s answer was brief.
Kabel raised an eyebrow slightly.
“Even after getting 58 billion?”
“Do you think Cheongmyeong will back off quietly just because they paid me?”
“You agreed to stop hostilities.”
“This particular matter is settled.”
Kang Doseok leaned back in his chair.
“But we won’t be able to leave each other alone for the rest of our lives.”
“Why?”
“Because Cheongmyeong’s guild leader is a swordsman.”
Kabel looked at him for a moment, then understood what he meant.
“Because of the Skill Stars?”
“That’s right.”
Kim Taegun, Cheongmyeong’s guild leader.
He was also a player with a sword art skill.
Just as Kang Doseok wanted Kim Taegun’s star, Kim Taegun would want Kang Doseok’s star too.
They had agreed to leave each other alone for now.
But as long as Skill Stars existed in this world, that promise could not last.
If someone had a star you wanted, you killed them and took it.
That was how players lived.
Kabel tapped the desk.
“There’s one thing I’m curious about, though.”
“What?”
“Why are you going this far to collect Skill Stars?”
“Because collecting them will make me stronger.”
“You’re already strong enough.”
“There’s another stage left.”
A puzzled look crossed Kabel’s face.
Kang Doseok continued as if it were nothing important.
“Back when this was a game, mastering certain sword arts unlocked a sword-category awakening.”
“Awakening?”
“It lets you go beyond the limits of sword arts once more. A single star won’t unlock it. You have to gather sword arts from different origins...”
“Wait. Wait, Kang Doseok. That’s not what I’m asking.”
Kabel cut him off.
“Then what?”
“What I mean is...”
Kabel looked him straight in the eye.
“Why do you want to become stronger?”
“...”
Kabel turned off the monitors.
Dozens of screens went black at once, and the office grew quiet.
“With the power you already have, there aren’t many people who can touch you. And you just received 58 billion.”
Kabel looked directly at him.
“We’ve worked together for five years. I know you well enough to know this isn’t about money.”
“So?”
“An ordinary player might call it quits at this point. That’s more than enough money to hole up somewhere safe and live in comfort for the rest of your life.”
Kabel asked again.
“So why do you keep trying to get stronger?”
“...Hmm.”
For a moment, Kang Doseok did not answer.
Then he stood and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window on one side of the office.
Beyond the glass lay Netron City, swept by the storm.
After a brief silence, he spoke.
“Two hundred thousand players were dragged into this game.”
“And?”
“And games have people called developers.”
Kang Doseok continued.
“The people who designed this world, back when it was a game.”
“Go on.”
Kabel’s expression slowly hardened.
“You people wouldn’t understand, but from our point of view, a game suddenly became reality, and two hundred thousand of us were dragged here.”
“...”
“There’s a rumor going around among the players.”
Kang Doseok looked at his reflection in the window.
“Apparently, one of the players who used to be a developer said something.”
“What did they say?”
“That anyone who collects at least a certain number of Skill Stars and reaches the ending of this game...”
Kang Doseok’s hand slowly came to rest on his sword hilt.
“Can obtain something called a Wish Star.”
For a while, Kabel could not say a word.
After staring at Kang Doseok’s back with their mouth slightly open, Kabel tilted their head in disbelief.
“A Wish Star?”
“It’s only a rumor, but they say it can grant any wish.”
Kabel let out a hollow laugh.
After wiping a hand down their face, Kabel stared at him in disbelief.
A moment of thought passed before Kabel asked, “Do you actually believe that nonsense?”
Kang Doseok gazed at his reflection for a while.
He kept his mouth shut for a moment, as if swallowing an answer, then replied quietly.
“Who knows?”
A bitter smile crossed his face as he spoke.
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