WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Oblivious
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◈ The World Is Not a Game ◈
Chapter 21
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At Colm's shout, a translucent red glow streamed like a spiderweb from his upturned palm.
The energy took solid form in an instant and spread in every direction. Like a net of sticky red slime, it stretched over a radius of roughly a hundred meters, covering the monsters' heads.
“Explode.”
When the strange red substance Colm had created touched a monster, eerie scarlet lines appeared on its skin like veins. Moments later, they glowed brightly, and the monster exploded.
More monsters kept forming, but the red slime scattered by each explosion landed on other monsters, repeating the process. It was an endless chain of explosions.
“Wow. I never thought I'd live to see hundreds of monsters going off like fireworks. How does that even work? What turns a monster into a bomb?”
“There's a little trick to it. I break through the monster's warp defenses and plant a kind of explosive conversion catalyst. It takes a little alchemical ability, too. Doing it to so many monsters is quite exhausting. Cover the melee ability users caught in the explosions. I need a moment to recover.”
After speaking to a nearby teammate on the ranged team, Colm took some pills from inside his clothing with a faintly trembling hand and tipped them into his mouth. Within seconds, veins bulged beneath his skin, burning blue, while unnatural blue blood vessels appeared in his eyes.
It was a narcotic stimulant and stamina restorative processed with warp energy.
The drug was highly effective, but its severe aftereffects had led to a ban. Still, those taking part in this expedition no longer had the luxury of worrying about what came afterward.
As Colm recovered, breathing blue vapor from his mouth and nose, Nikki nodded and shouted. She had been opening a doorway to the next space.
“All right! It's ready!”
“Abandon your firearms now! Fight with your own abilities! We'll jump to the core after another transition or two! Ranged team, keep covering us! Melee team, withdraw first!”
At Chuck's command, the melee Closers broke away one after another and sprinted toward Nikki's doorway, leaving the deafening explosions behind.
A few monsters that had survived the blasts chased after them, but the ranged team covering their retreat shot them down.
Once the melee team had disappeared through the doorway, the ranged team began to follow. Just then, a violent tremor shook the area, and a hail of white projectiles tore through the flames of the continuing explosions toward the group.
Even the ranged ability users had exceptional physical capabilities. They quickly raised barriers, dodged the attack, and threw themselves through the doorway. But Colm, exhausted from using such a large-scale technique, reacted a fraction too late.
“Gah!”
A white thorn as thick as an adult's forearm pierced Colm's barrier and high-strength Closer protective clothing, punching through his back and lodging in his abdomen.
Colm staggered, strength draining away, and began to collapse.
Hyeokjin quickly scooped Colm up and leaped through the doorway. Nikki fled through right after them.
They had barely escaped the surging monsters and reached the next space when they were greeted by...
“Damn it! What the hell is that?”
“Those things! They were waiting before we even got here!”
Near the base where the arched doorway had appeared, a skeletal scorpion with a massive, tank-like body was running wild. It was an S-rank monster known as a Thorn Killer.
The melee Closers who had entered first were already wounded, desperately trying to hold the Thorn Killer off. Meanwhile, the ranged ability users dodged its tail and showers of thorns, pouring fire into the low-rank monsters closing in around them and the S-rank monsters still taking shape.
“Damn. Looks like this is as far as I go.”
As Hyeokjin moved swiftly to avoid the Thorn Killer's tail and the rain of thorns, Colm lay pale-faced in Hyeokjin's arms, staring down at his abdomen and cursing.
A white stake had pierced it, destroying not only internal organs but part of the spine as well. Worse, the embedded stake writhed like a living creature, spreading roots through Colm's body.
It was a terrible injury, but not beyond repair.
Before the discovery of warp energy, even surviving such a wound would have meant living with a permanent disability. Things were different now.
Prosthetic engineering had advanced enough to replace internal organs, nerves, and even sections of the spine. With prosthetic replacements made and fitted to the damaged areas, Colm could recover completely after about a week of rest.
Hyeokjin's ability could repair all of it. But in their present situation, that was impossible.
“I'm counting on you, Hyeokjin. I'll wipe out everything here.”
Colm looked up at Hyeokjin with a determined expression. The moment Hyeokjin saw those eyes, still glowing blue from the drug, it was clear what Colm wanted.
Biting his lip, Hyeokjin called out the signal the team had agreed on beforehand.
-Bomb incoming!!
The instant they heard it, the scattered ranged ability users sprinted toward Nikki. Even the melee ability users fighting the Thorn Killer broke away, accepting injuries as they ran.
After making sure the others were gathering, Hyeokjin grabbed Colm's limp legs, spun around as if throwing a shot put, and hurled Colm toward the monster before running toward Nikki.
“Aaaaaaah!!!”
Colm screamed while hurtling toward the Thorn Killer. Veins bulged all over his body as a red, slimy glow engulfed it.
The Thorn Killer instinctively lashed out with its tail at that ominous glow. The moment it struck Colm...
Red light swallowed the world.
Colm's final struggle was no ordinary explosion.
It was a terrifying blast with the power of a strategic weapon, comparable to a bombardment with aerial bombs dropped by fighter-bombers.
Even the Thorn Killer, with its hard exoskeleton, was easily torn apart and hurled away by the shock wave. The surrounding monsters were swept away as well.
Yet the Closers survived the explosion.
“If we'd been even half a second slower getting clear, we'd all be dead.”
Inside the barriers raised by the ranged ability users, Chuck stared at the devastation outside and muttered, face pale.
No individual Closer could have survived that explosion. But Nikki had first used a spatial distortion field to greatly weaken the shock wave rushing toward the expedition, and the other ranged ability users had used whatever defensive techniques they possessed. Together, they had somehow endured it.
Still, everyone looked drained, as if the defense had taken everything they had.
As they hurriedly drank stamina restoratives and began recovering, their leader, Chuck, tipped some medicine into his mouth and addressed Nikki.
“I don't think we can keep passing through three-dimensional cross sections. Even if it's uncertain, let's jump straight to the core this time.”
“You don't have to tell me. I've been opening the way since the moment we got here.”
“That's good news. How long do we need to hold out?”
“About another twenty-five seconds. Opening a path straight to the core would only take fifteen more, but that might give us away. So I'm also opening a dimensional gate toward the three-dimensional cross section we originally planned to visit. That's adding about ten seconds.”
“...Never mind twenty-five seconds. Even fifteen might be pushing it.”
With a bitter smile at Nikki's answer, Chuck looked beyond the barriers.
Outside, the air shimmered with the heat and flames of the tremendous explosion. Yet monsters were already rising again.
As everyone watched and steadied their breathing for the coming battle, Hyeokjin, who had remained silent until now, clapped once and spoke to Chuck.
“I think I can buy that much time on my own. Please keep the camouflage field up. Nikki, bring out the wings.”
Nikki bit her lip slightly at Hyeokjin's request, then waved one hand. A huge mass of metal emerged through space.
They were enormous black metal wings, roughly six meters across.
Hyeokjin immediately pressed his back against the center of the wings. A needle-like framework extended from along his spine and connected to the wings. The moment Hyeokjin and the mass of metal became one, the wings stirred as though alive, scattering a dark purple glow.
“I'll be going, then.”
After saying goodbye to the others, Hyeokjin spread the newly acquired wings and took flight.
* * *
The antigravity device gave off a low hum, and the jetpack spewed blue flames.
Raven Wing combined the remains of an alien civilization found in a shadow world with modern mechanical engineering. The weapon was far more impressive than Hyeokjin had expected.
The wings moved with remarkable ease. They were so comfortable that it was hard to believe a mass of metal larger than Hyeokjin's body was attached to his back.
Hovering in the air, Hyeokjin took a deep breath, looked down at the monsters forming below, and activated the artificial organs inside his body.
Dozens of warp-based synthetic hormones produced by those organs were injected into the brain and spinal cord.
Ordinary drugs had their limits. But substances exposed to the sweet, dangerous energy known as warp went beyond reality.
The moment the drugs entered Hyeokjin's body, unknown chemical reactions began, and the body started to swell.
Since they had been refined with Hyeokjin's own magic power, there was none of the faint sense of wrongness that came with drinking someone else's potion.
As the drugs flooded in, Hyeokjin shuddered involuntarily.
Euphoria. An overwhelming euphoria consumed his mind.
It was a joy so powerful that even emotions dulled by more than a decade of drug misuse and abuse could feel it. What could this be called? The bliss of nirvana? Ecstasy?
It wasn't mere physical pleasure. It felt as though his mind were expanding and he was becoming a higher being.
But that sensation lasted only a moment. Hyeokjin immediately let out a roar mixed with a scream.
Warp drugs constantly synthesized inside the body had dulled Hyeokjin's emotions and built up a tolerance for pain. Yet the sensations produced by this newly injected mixture surpassed imagination.
It felt as though a chilling ice pick were stabbing into the brain and every nerve in the body were being fried by electrical sparks, as though the entire body were being taken apart and put back together, over and over.
-!!!
-!!!
The stimulation spread through the connected wires to the cylinders inside Hyeokjin's body. The monsters trapped within woke up and screamed along with Hyeokjin.
Just as the engineers who had built the device intended, the electrical activity in their brains began to be shared little by little through the wires. Their memories and emotions were shared as well, along with their “understanding of warp energy,” a process whose mechanism remained unknown.
In that instant, Hyeokjin gained an understanding of warp.
And realized, at the same time, that there would never be a return to normal.
It was a wretched sensation, soaring to an endless height only to plunge deep beneath the earth. Duty alone was the bedrock that kept Hyeokjin anchored as Hyeokjin.
There was only one goal now...
To hold back the monsters approaching the other S-rank Closers.
Hyeokjin stared at the rising monsters, beings whose very appearance sent chills through the body and inspired a fear that reason could not explain, and unleashed all the anger and anguish within.
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