Dungeon Odyssey [EN]: Chapter 314

Dungeon Chronicle – Episode 315

# 314

Dungeon Chronicle

Episode 315

I could end the Usurper whenever I wanted.

If I just slightly released the Greed that was clamoring to be let loose, she would be erased without a trace, her very existence wiped out. And finally, revenge would be complete.

But I couldn’t do that. Kim Jin-woo suppressed himself, standing on the verge of completing the revenge he had so desperately desired.

“Why?”

The Usurper was a schemer and manipulator who had toyed with his entire life. He couldn’t even grasp her meticulousness in achieving the Throne of Truth, so the clumsy hostage situation she set up was even more incomprehensible.

And he didn’t want to leave even a small doubt in achieving his revenge.

“She must have known this would happen, so why did she make such a reckless move?”

If she had approached him without revealing her identity, he might have blindly trusted and loved her, remembering her sacrifice to save him in the end.

It would have been much easier for her to achieve her goal that way.

He couldn’t understand why the Usurper, knowing all those facts, deliberately revealed her identity and brought the hidden story of the Underground to the center of the incident.

Didn’t all her actions ultimately bind herself and put her in a position to await his disposal?

“Speak. The reason I’ve kept you alive until now is because I want to hear the reason from your mouth.”

The Usurper, who had been sitting motionless, raised her head at Kim Jin-woo’s words.

“I don’t understand. You’ve changed so much that you’ve far exceeded my expectations. But now, you’re just like the little Jin-woo I remember.”

There was no longer any fabricated emotion on her parched face.

The manufactured kindness and gentleness, as well as the insidious greed, were nowhere to be found. So she looked like a soulless doll.

“Don’t mistake curiosity for sympathy. I don’t have any of those cheap emotions left.”

Kim Jin-woo coldly retorted, even while thinking that perhaps her current emotionless appearance was her true face.

“It’s true that you’ve overcome everything too easily.”

The Usurper stared at him with clear eyes for a long time before opening her mouth.

“But don’t think that I deliberately brought about this ending for you. You seem to expect some special emotion from me now. It looks like you’re still trying to project ‘Sohee’ onto me.”

Kim Jin-woo was startled by her transparent gaze. Her story, which claimed that his actions, which he thought were to leave no doubts, were merely hesitation, was quite persuasive.

“Is what you want a non-existent truth? Or is it the end of a tragedy that has finally returned to square one but could never be undone?”

She got up.

“But I can’t grant any of those. I have no intention of dying as the Sohee you remember, nor do I intend to babble to achieve a more satisfactory victory.”

No sooner had she finished speaking than a terrible evil energy flowed from her entire body. It was an insidious, wicked energy that aroused an unknown impulse.

[The power of the Lord of Depravity, the most terrible evil and memories of a time, spread out.]

[The twilight when many lords lost their lives and even more summonses died miserably, the madness of that terrible war has manifested here.]

[The Nagas’ minds are about to be corrupted.]

[The Einherjar’s minds are about to be corrupted.]

Despite being quite far away, the Nagas gasped for breath. The strange heat quickly turned into madness and infected the Naga right next to them.

Even though there were no more enemies to face, their hands, clutching swords and spears, clenched as if they would be thrown away at any moment.

[Loyalty to their master and a strong bond are suppressing them, but if more time passes, the Nagas may even turn their swords against their own kind.]

The Nagas, who had denied the very origin of their clan with loyalty to their master, barely endured the madness, but among the Einherjar [warriors of Norse mythology chosen to fight for Odin in Valhalla], some were already beginning to bare their teeth at their comrades.

If a little more time passed, a terrible massacre dominated by murderous intent and madness, unable to distinguish between friend and foe, would take place. The flames of madness and hatred kindled by the Lord of Depravity were that deep and profound.

But even so, Kim Jin-woo quietly watched the Usurper.

The Lord of Depravity was making a sound in her throat with her eyes turned completely white. Her fingernails, covered in a terrible curse that would corrupt the mind and rot the body just by touching it, rose sharply as if to scratch.

“I see.”

He sighed heavily, watching her gestures, which seemed particularly slow.

“Is that your choice?”

No sooner had he finished speaking than his fingertips, which had grabbed her small hand, turned black.

The faint energy, like smoke flickering thinly on the remaining ashes, quickly became a huge darkness and instantly swallowed the flames of madness kindled by the Lord of Depravity.

The Usurper’s power was strong. In a short time, she had made thousands of Einherjar fight each other, and even the Nagas, who were said to be unshakable, had been infected with madness. But that was it.

The madness and hatred she had scattered could not overcome Kim Jin-woo’s power. The energy of Greed, which spread out late, devoured even that.

“Ah…”

Kim Jin-woo looked at his fingertips. The black stain seemed to have grown even larger than before. And the small hand held at the end was no longer in this world.

The Lord of Benevolence, who had survived as the last lord of the Underground that had perished at the end of the ancient twilight and had reigned as the king of the Underground for countless years, finally met her end under the name of Depravity.

“Living is perhaps like walking backwards. My steps are constantly heading towards tomorrow, but I only realized today that my eyes have always been looking at the path I’ve walked. Foolishly, I couldn’t look to tomorrow in the end.”

Even in the terrible pain of her existence disappearing, her face looked more peaceful than ever. With a strange sense of relief somewhere on her tired face, she gave a soft smile as if she had returned to the past in her last moment.

“But Jin-woo, my little Jin-woo.”

She didn’t keep her word that she wouldn’t face death with longing.

“You, at least, look ahead. Live today and dream of tomorrow, rather than living in the past.”

What did she want? Did she try to destroy the world by becoming the night herself, or was it something else? I don’t know. She didn’t tell me the answer until the end, and now she couldn’t answer anymore.

“Noona…” [Korean term for older sister used by a male]

With a complicated heart, I repeat the name I used to call her in the past. I chase the warmth of the fingertips that have now disappeared and grab a handful of cold air.

“Master!”

Dominique, who arrived late, was somehow sobbing. It must be because the master’s emotions were conveyed directly through the exchange of thoughts.

“What did she really want? What was she thinking at the last moment?”

Kim Jin-woo continued, still looking at the empty air without turning to Dominique.

“Did I kill her, or did she kill herself?”

It was a complicated feeling.

“Why didn’t she prepare another plan?”

“She dug a trap targeting both the master, the tyrant of the Underground and the Lord of Greed, and the master who is a terrestrial [earthly being]. But neither worked.”

Dominique said. All the hardships to get here and today’s crisis were all traps she had prepared, and she told him that he had finally achieved victory because he had overcome them all.

“Is that so? Did she die because she was weaker than me?”

“That’s all.”

Only after hearing Dominique’s answer did Kim Jin-woo turn around.

“I see. It seems that the small whim she showed at the last moment made me a little complicated.”

It will be difficult to completely shake off the remnants of emotion right away. The impact the Usurper had on his life was not small.

But now was not the time to embrace personal feelings and worry. There was still work to be done.

He had to meet the great will that governs the mysteries of the Underground, the mystery of the Underground itself, and the great ash tree that supports the Underground. That was why he came all the way here.

“But before that.”

He, who had regained his usual complexion, looked back at the summonses and said.

“Celebrating the victory will be the priority.”

The Einherjar and Nagas, who had been holding their breath and watching their master’s mood, belatedly shouted cheers of victory.

“It ended up like that after all.”

While the Nagas and Einherjar were busy moving and cleaning up the battlefield, Kim Jin-woo talked with Yoon-hee.

“The terrestrial and the beings of the Underground are all the same in that they are greedy. Now that the Underground has been united, they have no reason to hesitate anymore.”

Yoon-hee told him about the situation on the ground, which was in full swing preparing for war, and said that they had already finished preparing to dispatch explorers.

“At least one month, at most six months, is the time the Underground has to prepare to face the terrestrial.”

With repeated restorations, many labyrinths had collapsed, and the surviving labyrinths had also suffered many hardships due to the attacks of the Evil Gods.

It was by no means easy for such an Underground to prevent the full-scale invasion of the terrestrial.

In addition, the terrain of the Underground, which had become more favorable for the terrestrial to operate in, was also a reason why the war was bound to become difficult.

“I understand. I will devise a plan as soon as I return. I will also continue the story I couldn’t finish with you then.”

“As you wish.”

Instead of Yoon-hee, who stepped back with a bow, Angela approached this time.

“Master.”

In her hand was the Wish Stone, which he had been unable to touch for fear of the night. He silently accepted the small stone she handed him.

[The night is ravenous. The Parasitic Horse is also drooling.]

The night, which was sealed in the Parasitic Horse’s body, rampaged once again. The effort to somehow reach the Wish Stone was pathetic.

But the place where the Parasitic Horse, where the night had settled, was his right hand, and the hand holding the Wish Stone was his left hand.

Unless he made up his mind, his right hand would never touch his left hand.

[At first glance, it looks no different from a top-grade Down Gem, but this small stone is a valuable item that cannot be compared to an ordinary Down Gem.]

[This treasure, which will never exist again in this Underground, has wandered through the Underground with all sorts of wishes and desires, and has finally reached you through the Lord of True Blood.]

[The Wish Stone, which would originally have been filled with only the purest wishes of the Underground, has been contaminated by the desires of the terrestrial. No one knows whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.]

[But in any case, the value of this ancient treasure will not change.]

[You have finally obtained the Wish Stone, the stone of wishes that grants wishes.]

The message I had seen once before filled my eyes again, followed by a message I had never seen before.

[It is foolish to devour the Wish Stone, which has infinite possibilities.]

[The reward you will get just by returning the Wish Stone to its original place is incomparable to a temporary sense of fullness.]

[If you are recognized as the owner of the Wish Stone, you may receive even greater rewards.]

[Would you like to return the Wish Stone to its original location?]