WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Seven-Time Hero Goes Live ◈
Chapter 50: The Expert's Way (2)
──────
“Ah... Father.”
At those words, Jun-il froze.
‘What?’
Right in the center of the Patchwork Corpse Golem was a familiar middle-aged face, embedded there for all to see.
It was Hae-il’s father.
‘This is insane.’
Jun-il had to make a quick decision.
Could Kang Hae-il deal with that thing here?
Based on all the data he had gathered so far...
‘No.’
No.
Then would the Patchwork Corpse Golem suddenly awaken his father’s mind, stop attacking, and say, “H-Hae-il...?”
‘No.’
The odds of that happening were nowhere in sight.
A Patchwork Corpse Golem was a fusion of countless corpses to begin with. It was absurd enough to think only Kang Hae-il’s father would awaken within it, and even if he did, he could not seize control of the entire golem.
As a Hero, Jun-il made his decision.
‘Run for now.’
Tap tap tap tap!
-?
-???
-The Porter bastard is running away~
-Lmao
-He’s bolting lmao
He did run, but only far enough to barely leave Hae-il’s field of view before stopping.
He swiftly took off his outerwear and tossed it into his Inventory, then pulled out the clothes he had brought.
A black coat, black combat boots, even gloves.
-?
-What is this, Batman?
-What is this?
-That changing speed is crazy
-Transformation set
-Pyoroong~ Magical Girl L4GS transformation~
-Military veteran changing speed
A few sharp-eyed Constellations knew what he was doing.
He was transforming into L4GS.
Before putting on the mask as the final step, Jun-il looked down at himself.
This... definitely would make him look very different.
Normally, he would have felt reassured even here.
‘If he recognizes me, it’s over.’
But had he not just entered Kang Hae-il’s memories and come back out?
Jun-il was now the enemy who had killed Hae-il’s father.
On top of that, he had been with Kang Hae-il only moments ago. Hae-il might identify him by his voice or any number of other details.
‘Shop.’
Whoosh.
[Anything, Anytime Shop Lv.2]
He opened the Shop.
He had not opened it to use something like camera work.
‘There it is.’
He flipped through the pages to the Narrative Trick series.
While browsing the list in his spare time, he had found something.
He had wanted to save his money so he could buy a sword right away if possible, but...
[Narrative Trick Mask]
[Price: 500 Feelings (FL)]
He had no choice but to use this.
The price was reasonable too.
It had no stats whatsoever, like defense. It was literally just a trick show.
==== ====
“Please allow me to be a righteous thief again today.”
A mask that has spread the theory of face blindness through countless stories.
It makes it difficult for others to recognize its wearer, and even makes the wearer’s voice sound different.
However, Constellations see the wearer as they truly are.
The mask can be changed into any desired shape.
==== ====
The Constellations would see him as he really was.
That made it a very frightening item.
How frustrating would it be if someone failed to recognize a person standing right beside them, even though their voice was unchanged?
It would be even more infuriating if they wore the exact same clothes too.
But he would not go that far.
‘I can’t let my guard down.’
When it came to anything related to those fairy bastards, he had to read the descriptions carefully.
‘Difficult to recognize.’
It did not say they could never recognize him.
Only that it would be difficult.
If he crossed the line, someone would recognize him.
[Purchase]
Jingle.
Jun-il spent every last bit of his remaining story currency to pay for it.
-Oh, a donation
-A perfectly timed donation
-What kind of item is that???
-Ooooooh
The Constellations thought a perfectly timed item donation had come in.
Thud.
A box fell in front of him.
“Huh? A-all of a sudden?”
Even with no time to spare, Jun-il still acted the part.
He looked surprised as he slowly opened the box.
“What is this...?”
Pretending to be confused, he read the description.
“Lucky me.”
He gave them that one line.
-Nice
-“Lucky me,” lmao
-He’s finally lucky for once
-Is this really Moon Jun-il, the guy who got attacked with a shit toilet?
-For real, this one is lucky
He had suffered such terrible luck so far that the Constellations were delighted even at a scene where he was absurdly lucky.
They did not find it strange at all.
They had fallen for the gambler’s fallacy.
“Then...”
Jun-il put on the mask.
‘Black cat.’
He changed it into the shape of the cat mask he had originally worn.
The design was sleeker, but the difference was about the same as the masks in Spider-Man 2 and 3.
In other words, it still looked enough like L4GS.
-Ooooooh
-So cool
-Wow, it got upgraded lol
-Is he going to fight dressed like that?
-Are you going to save Hae-il? ㅠㅠ
-Hurry up already ㅠㅠ
Now that he was L4GS, there was no need to hide his strength.
He immediately ran back to where Kang Hae-il was.
Tap tap tap tap!
The giant golem came into view in the distance.
‘Judging by its level... this is going to be rough.’
It looked difficult to deal with using the skills he already had.
Undead like the Patchwork Corpse Golem were the kind Jun-il hated facing most.
They had no particular weakness.
He simply had to destroy the core.
Naturally, the core was right in the center.
‘The problem is how huge it is.’
Jun-il considered his options.
If Kang Hae-il were not being beaten up, Jun-il could take his time and beat the thing to death.
But now, he had to split the core open immediately.
Otherwise, this world would be finished.
‘Do I have to use that...?’
Mana Blade.
‘So that’s why they gave me that skill.’
It was a skill granted to him when memories of the first-run villain suddenly resurfaced.
When Jun-il received the skill, he had not been purely pleased.
First, he inherited the power from his days as Yulian and used skills as he pleased anyway.
Receiving it separately did not make him any stronger.
Second, it just felt bad.
‘That unpleasant memory...’
His memories connected to this skill were not good.
Had the first-run villain not said so?
That the Mana Blade episode had been his favorite.
Jun-il felt exactly the opposite.
That was the most horrifying memory he had.
‘Ha... Damn it.’
And Kang Hae-il’s memories would probably become the same before long.
‘Is this a similar situation?’
Whoosh.
Jun-il pulled a sword once used by a Goblin from his Inventory and charged at the Patchwork Corpse Golem.
‘I’ll finish it in one blow.’
If he was going to use it, he would do it properly.
Jun-il made that vow.
Tap tap tap!
As he rapidly closed in, he shut his eyes.
‘Ten percent of Yulian’s power.’
He precisely sensed his mana and drew it up.
‘It’s definitely different.’
Seven percent and ten percent were clearly different.
It felt like crossing some kind of wall.
Flash!
A blue gleam passed through his eyes.
[Mana Blade]
He activated the skill.
Vwoooom!
A blue sword strike shot forward, sharpened to a keen edge.
It split everything in two.
The blade cut through even the air as it advanced, then naturally cleaved through its target in a single stroke.
Slaaash!
The golem’s body, covered in countless stiff corpses, split in half.
As cleanly as a slice of ham.
Thud...!
The corpses with their smooth cross-sections fell to either side.
It was perfectly dead.
Behind the corpses that had hidden him stood Kang Hae-il.
Their eyes met.
* * *
“He’s doing it! Kang Hae-il! He’s finally awakening!”
Ram shot into the air with a shriek.
The signs of Kang Hae-il’s impending Awakening had been unmistakable.
“Sam! We’re about to blow up!”
“Yes, Lady Ram! W-we’re finally! Are we finally going to see the light!?”
“That’s right! Good job, Kang Hae-il!!”
Fortunately, Kang Hae-il had not given up.
Here, he would put his father to rest with his own hands.
Then he would be reborn as a complete Hero.
Just as many Heroes had in the past.
But they forgot for a moment again.
One of those past Heroes was here.
“?”
Slaaash!
The Patchwork Corpse Golem was cut in half.
Ram and Sam looked at each other with blank, soulless eyes.
“Th-that, that just now...”
They could not believe it.
The one who had just split Kang Hae-il’s father’s corpse in half.
Was that him?
His clothes and shoes were all different, so... he was difficult to recognize.
-It’s me <(_ _)/
Only after seeing the Constellations’ reactions did they believe it.
“Y-Yulian!?”
“Uwaaaah!?”
Ram and Sam’s eyes widened as though they would pop out.
* * *
‘That guy...?’
Even through the blazing heat haze and acrid smoke obscuring his vision, he could see him.
“L4GS...?”
He was the culprit behind the Line 4 incident that had driven his father into danger.
The Line 4 Goblin Slayer.
Kang Hae-il stood on the verge of Awakening, his entire body burning with fire.
His mind was clouded by rage as immense as those blazing flames.
“You...”
Killing intent gradually colored his entire body.
Even Jun-il found it difficult to measure the depth of that rage.
It was enough to make him think Hae-il might Awaken through rage alone.
But Awakening could not be reached through simple anger alone.
It was a blessing granted to those who chose the path of a Hero even when they had to kill something precious with their own hands, when the responsibility of a Hero clashed with personal feelings.
The Constellations’ wishes, one’s fighting spirit, and overcoming despair.
Awakening was the Moment of the Stars that arrived when those three things came together.
Once that moment passed, it absolutely could not return for a while.
Hae-il had lost that opportunity.
Jun-il had deprived him of his chance to Awaken.
Now, the Constellations’ wishes could only cool little by little.
The wind had gone out of them.
-This is such frustrating bullshit, seriously
-Does he seriously not recognize the Porter?
-This shitty development??? Again??? Are you sane??? lol
-I’m dropping this
-You fucker, that’s Moon Jun-il. How can you not recognize him??
-Is this a misery porn story? lol
-I feel like I’m going to suffocate to death
This was not Jun-il’s intention.
‘Whew. I saved him.’
He had only helped because Kang Hae-il did not look capable of killing his own father, no matter how he looked at it.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Didn’t I save you?”
Jun-il lowered his voice the whole time in case he was recognized.
-Lmao
-That’s true
-For real lol
-Fuck, are you asking because you don’t know?? lol
His Constellations loved it.
It felt like the Constellations here were gradually liking Jun-il more than Kang Hae-il.
Maybe that was only natural.
They had specifically come looking for someone who was not the protagonist and had been treated as an Extra until only recently.
They already had unusual tastes.
The real problem was that even the Constellations in Kang Hae-il’s room were shaken by those words.
-But he did survive;
-Honestly, didn’t L4GS save him at this point?
-Now I finally understand, Sa-father~
This was absolutely Jun-il’s intention.
L4GS might be hateful from Hae-il’s perspective.
But to the Constellations, it was ambiguous.
They shared some of Kang Hae-il’s emotions, but what if those emotions became excessive?
‘Emotional overload.’
Jun-il knew it all too well.
‘In the end, they won’t fully sympathize.’
When a long, drawn-out sad story did not lead to a good outcome, some Constellations instead shut off their emotions.
It was to protect themselves.
-In the end, he lived. Isn’t that enough?
-Honestly, he almost died
-Melodrama is exhausting... It’s just exhausting...
That was why protagonists were not usually given blood relatives who could cause this sort of emotional overload in the first place.
Fairy Corporation generally selected orphans with no connection to their parents as protagonists.
Kang Hae-il’s father had also been written to die because he was Hae-il’s only blood relative.
The problem was that the culprit who had led his father to death was alive in this Story setting.
“You... Why are you here?”
He was standing right before him.
And he was a veteran who had served as a Hero across seven runs.
“Coincidence.”
Everything was coincidence.
Or the great flow of the story.
-Lmao
-He doesn’t even intend to lie lol
-Is this bastard deliberately getting under his skin? lol
-Damn
-Coolness itself
“You expect me to believe that?”
He could not believe it.
That guy had killed his father twice, once while he was alive and once after he was dead.
This was the only reality Kang Hae-il had been given.
In a situation like this, it was impossible for a human being to control their emotions.
If he could stand still here, that might instead make him unfit to be called human.
His reason blurred with rage.
“Fuck...”
Tap tap tap tap!
Kang Hae-il charged.
His body burned several times more fiercely than before, carrying a completely different momentum.
“Dieeeee!!”
With the sole thought of killing that bastard.
‘Hmm.’
The eyes behind Jun-il’s mask grew troubled.
‘If I mess this up, he might die.’
He was at ten percent of Yulian’s power now.
If he struck wrong, Kang Hae-il could die.
-Rematch?
-Who wins this time?
-L4GS vs. Kang Hae-il
-Honestly, shouldn’t he at least beat an F-rank??
-I think he’ll Awaken if he wins this
-Kang Hae-il has to win, fuck
Footnotes:
“Sa-father” recreates a chat nickname that blends L4GS’s Korean nickname with the Korean word for “father.”
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