WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Seven-Time Hero Goes Live ◈
Chapter 41: Department Head Necromancer (2)
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There were many kinds of black magic.
From curse-based magic that bordered on superstition and sorcery to possession-based magic that involved directly contracting with demons.
There were too many different forms of black magic to lump them all together.
‘Disgusting bastards.’
But they had one thing in common.
They made him want to throw up.
You did not need to be some justice-obsessed animal lover to feel disgusted when you saw someone tormenting a helpless cat right in front of you.
Even a Hero who had lived through all manner of things always felt repulsed by people who used black magic.
Because however varied the results of black magic might be, its source was always the same.
‘The suffering of the weakest.’
Their preferred sacrifices were children.
The weakest of all.
They extracted the pure mana that could only come from them.
And pain was inevitably part of that process.
Their suffering created red mana, which became these people’s power source.
Whether they were necromancers, liches, or bastards contracted with demons.
Black magic was always much the same.
That was why Jun-il secretly found this satisfying.
[Hidden Quest Discovered!]
When the Constellation’s heart had aligned with his.
==== ====
Objective: Slaughter all Necromancers
Reward:
==== ====
‘So you’re the one at the top.’
Shunk!
That was why he had instantly driven a goblin dagger through the Department Head Necromancer’s chin.
The necromancers’ eyes went wide.
“W-what...!?”
“What the hell is that bastard!? Wasn’t he F-rank!?”
“I thought he was a porter!”
The necromancers panicked.
They hurriedly pulled out their staffs and tried to cast spells.
But they were far too slow.
The moment they froze up and babbled in front of Professional Hero Yulian, they may as well have already been dead.
Jun-il had already shot toward them like an arrow.
A blue sword strike came flying.
Slash!
Slash!
Several arms holding staffs were severed almost at once.
‘What the hell?’
‘Gasp.’
They watched their own arms fly away without even managing a scream.
‘N-no...’
Another horizontal slash sent the upper halves of three bodies crashing down at once.
Slash!
-Damn...
-Gasp
-Three at once, wow lol
-Whoa
-Once this music starts, everyone just dies lol
‘Three down.’
Jun-il had already counted the necromancers here.
There were sixteen.
‘Thirteen left.’
Unless there were reinforcements hiding somewhere, thirteen remained.
Now things would get a little troublesome.
He had successfully interrupted three castings.
Hum!
“R-rise!”
The other necromancers cast their spells, and green magic circles glowed across the floor.
Jun-il’s eyes darted rapidly.
‘Four are casting.’
Four of them cast spells from different spots at once.
The scattered bones around them trembled and began to rise into the air.
‘You first.’
Whoosh!
Jun-il immediately threw his blade at one of them.
The careless caster’s pupils widened, clearly thinking, It’s pretty far. Will that even hit?
Shunk!
The dagger pierced straight through their eye and drove into their brain.
“!”
The necromancer collapsed alongside the skeleton they had been trying to raise, unable to scream just like the others.
“C-crazy...?”
“What was that? What kind of magic was that!?”
To them, that dagger throw was closer to magic than anything else.
-Lol, “magic,” my ass
-Sufficiently powerful physical force is indistinguishable from magic...
-It is basically magic lol
-What the hell, seriously
-So damn cool
Three casters remained.
Boing!
Jun-il kicked off the ground and lightly launched himself into the air.
‘Flash Step.’
His figure scattered, then reappeared.
Flash!
Right in front of the other necromancers who were casting.
“W-when did he!?”
“What the hell!?”
“That bastard has no weapon now! Keep casting!”
He was clearly empty-handed.
Whoosh.
Then a blade appeared from thin air.
“What do you mean I don’t have a blade? I’m a porter, you know.”
He swung it immediately.
Slash!
Red blood splattered across the cave wall.
“Crazy, what kind of porter is th... Urk!”
Shunk!
A blade drove into another man’s abdomen.
The two necromancers, killed in different ways, collapsed at the same time.
Thud!
‘One of them dodged.’
But one remained.
“The casting’s done! You’re dead!”
He had finally completed the spell.
The corpses twitched and rose.
Thralls made from bodies that still had flesh on them.
[Ghoul Lv.12]
Ghouls.
Two of them, and both were level 12.
Considering that the Champion Goblin had been level 15, they were fairly strong.
“Grrraaaah...!”
Tap tap!
One of them charged on all fours.
The necromancer grinned and shouted.
“Go! Tackle!”
But before the ghoul could slam into Jun-il, something else struck first.
Shunk!
“Uh... Huh?”
At some point, a dagger had lodged in the necromancer’s eye.
Still wearing the same smile, he toppled backward.
Thump.
“Fell for it again?”
-Respect. <(_ _)/
-What is that accuracy, seriously??
-Yeah, he has tons of goblin daggers. He can just keep throwing them.
-This is a porter? This is a porter? This is a porter?
-Ack lol
-Nice
The two ghouls he had struggled to summon also fell over and returned to being corpses.
‘There are still a lot left.’
But the ones in the other directions had succeeded in their summons.
They had even changed their strategy.
“Turn off the lights!”
“Don’t let that bastard see you!”
“Damn it, that thing isn’t F-rank! What the hell is he!?”
They had finally acknowledged Jun-il’s strength.
They scattered and fled, hiding behind corners and pillars as they continued casting.
Hummmmm!
“Ha. Annoying bastards.”
Clatter.
On the right, two skeletons at a time rose to their feet.
“Grrrr...!”
“Grrr...!”
“Grrk!? Grr...”
On the left, countless ghouls slowly advanced, pressing in on him.
This was different from facing a mindless Goblin Swarm.
These were humans who used tactics and psychological warfare.
Even the Constellations were flustered by their unexpectedly large numbers.
-That’s way too many.
-Ugh
-Even if each one makes only two, how many is that?
-Jun-il struggles when there are lots of enemies.
-Is L4GS actually going to lose?
-What, is he getting pushed back??
-He did well for an F-rank...
-The music’s still playing.
‘This is tiring.’
Jun-il’s fighting style became disadvantageous when there were too many opponents.
It had been similar when he was Yulian, too.
He had trained mainly to fight one overwhelmingly strong enemy.
A Hero was someone meant to kill the Demon King, after all.
Dealing with this many enemies at once had always been the mage’s job in a Hero party.
Of course, F-trash-rank porter Jun-il had no such party member.
‘But I have something similar.’
Fortunately, he had one thing that could do the job.
He raised his hand.
A gleaming dark-violet ring shone on his finger.
[Gravity Ring]
It was an item he had obtained from the Champion Goblin dungeon.
A Hero-grade ring, no less.
This ring allowed him to use one gravity spell.
Of course, it had not said a word about how to use it.
‘The foundation of magic is visualization.’
Yulian’s party had always had a mage.
Even if he did not cast magic himself, he had picked up more magical knowledge than he could count.
Jun-il designated an area in his mind and activated the spell.
[Gravity Field]
[Creates a powerful gravitational field in the designated area, gathering enemies in one place and crushing them under immense weight. Cooldown: 2 hours.]
Rumble!
Blue mana vibrated, then oxidized into a gleaming dark violet as it crushed down on the earth and air.
The entire space itself warped.
Craaaack!
Rocks collapsed into smaller stones, which crumbled into sand.
There was no need to mention what happened to anything caught inside.
“Gyaaah!?”
“Khk...!”
Squelch!
The crude corpse-made thralls were simply crushed into red masses of pulp.
More than half of their summoned forces vanished in an instant.
“...What?”
“C-crazy. What was that?”
“What class is that bastard? He can use magic too?”
“He’s been using magic from the start. He keeps firing things at us.”
The necromancers had gone beyond panic and into fear.
That was exactly what Jun-il wanted.
‘There’s no need to fight now.’
If there was one thing he had learned from fighting the Demon King countless times, it was this.
War was not simply a game of killing as many enemies as possible.
Killing them all one by one would be terribly inefficient.
What he really needed to target was their minds.
Their will to fight.
Their fighting spirit.
Shake that, and enemies collapsed more easily than expected.
[Cool BGM]
[Stopped]
First, he turned off the music.
“Ahem.”
Jun-il cleared his throat, then shouted loudly.
[Mana Shout]
“Listen up, every last one of you!”
Boom!
His mana-filled shout would invigorate allies.
But to his enemies, it was terror.
“Uurgh...!?”
“Urk...!”
As if their hearts were being crushed by gravity magic again, the necromancers froze in confusion.
They had never experienced a skill like this before.
“You can’t beat me anyway.”
-Lol, what is that tone?
-??? King, you guys can’t beat me.
-What is this mental attack?
-Lol
-What’s he trying to do now lol
-Yo, washed-up Hero, how was that?
One of Mana Shout’s effects said that it increased persuasiveness.
When fear was paired with even a little persuasion, it could shake any person.
That was especially true for necromancers who had been ordinary modern people until just recently.
‘R-right. We can’t beat him.’
‘Damn it... That monster porter! We can’t beat him!’
‘He killed them all with one attack.’
‘I couldn’t even follow him with my eyes.’
If they joined forces, they might have been able to put Jun-il in a difficult position.
But their minds were now filled with despair.
Had they not just seen countless thralls die to a single gravity spell?
The fear that they might soon suffer the same fate seeped through their entire bodies.
And when despair had filled someone completely, what happened if they saw even the slightest hope?
“But it’s fine!”
-?
-?
-What do you mean it’s fine lol
-You’re the one who’s fine, asshole lol
-Yeah, it’s fine if we can’t win. We can just die.
“I just have something I’m curious about! I never intended to fight like this! Not if I hadn’t heard something strange!”
A rotten rope.
But someone trapped in despair would grab even that.
No matter how absurd it sounded, a person might desperately choose to believe it.
To survive, they would believe words that led to death.
The necromancers whispered among themselves.
“What? That’s all it was?”
“Damn it. You should’ve said so from the start...”
“Haah... Deok-ho hyung is the problem. He got on his nerves with one of those dad jokes.”
“Fuck, I told you not to make that F-trash-rank joke, Deok-ho hyung!”
-Then say that from the start, holy shit lol
-You kill people before asking what you’re curious about? Lol
-No, lol
-Ack lol
-The necromancers are blaming their department head.
-They believe that??? Lol
-Yeah?
-This is a lie lol
Why did they fall for scams like that?
Why did they believe such lies?
You could not understand it when your mind was sound.
Because the words used in a scam were not what mattered.
The problem was being driven into a situation where you could not help but fall for one.
Jun-il knew exactly where that point was.
Right now.
“Starting now! I’ll spare the first five who cooperate!”
Scurry scurry scurry!
Every necromancer crawled out at once.
-This is crazy lol
-Reverse cockroaches, damn
-Wizards were such a fast class lol
-What the fuck is reverse cockroaches?
-Fuck lol, this is crazy
-Wow lol, they all fell for it?
The necromancers gathered together in one spot, all nice and orderly.
“C-crazy, I-I was first!”
“M-me! I was first!”
The first five.
Naturally, there was a trap.
“The first five to cooperate.”
Not the first five to gather.
“What do we have to cooperate with!?”
“Hyung! I-I can do anything!”
Jun-il looked down at them and spoke.
“Fine. I’ll spare the first ones to answer. Raise your hand before answering.”
“...Yes!”
A dagger immediately flew into the necromancer who had just answered.
Shunk!
“W-why...?”
The necromancer toppled backward with that confused look still on their face.
Thud.
They were dead.
“Why? I told you to raise your hand before answering.”
“...!”
-Lol
-This is crazy lol
-Lol, ahahaha
-I said don’t call out the final count!
-He died because he didn’t raise his hand? This is insane lol
“First question. You people make sacrifices, right?”
Everyone immediately raised their hands high.
“Hey, I’m not done with the question, you bastards. Again. Those sacrifices. What kind are they?”
The first man to raise his hand.
Jun-il pointed at him and nodded.
“Okay. You.”
“Yes! We offer living people!”
The necromancers’ eyes shook.
Was he seriously allowed to say that?
Apparently, he was.
“Good. Stand here.”
“Yes!”
Jun-il made him stand to his right.
The survivor stood beside him with a smile.
‘Bastards. I survived.’
Confusion crossed the other necromancers’ faces.
But that confusion soon turned into fighting spirit.
‘Fuck, I’ll definitely answer the next one.’
‘I’ll get it right...!’
They would survive by getting the quiz questions right.
And so began a deadly Golden Bell.
“Next question.”
As Jun-il opened his mouth, the necromancers’ eyes began to shine.
“Where on earth do you procure the people offered as sacrifices?”
Hands shot up all at once.
Look at those sparkling eyes.
How meaningless they were.
No matter how brightly their eyes shone, they could not see it.
The fate already decided for them.
[Hidden Quest]
==== ====
Objective: Slaughter all Necromancers
Reward:
==== ====
“You. Answer.”
“Yes!”
Footnotes:
“Golden Bell” refers to a Korean television quiz format in which contestants answer questions to remain in the competition.
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