Chapter 180 – Ghost Story (4)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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A ghost powdered white from head to toe popped up right before my eyes and cried peekaboo. No matter how brave a person was, it was a situation where they’d foam at the mouth and faint on the spot. Kang Geom-ma too gave a start.

The `rank of mind` quickly calmed the chest, but it wasn’t to the level of immovable composure.

It couldn’t completely erase shocks bigger than expected like this. If you deliberately tried to scare someone, they could still get rattled.

But only to that extent. Calmness came back quickly.

The enemies I had faced until now had all been the kind of monsters who could boast their names.

Each time, I had felt that chill run down my back, so this much only needed a moment.

“You pop out and scare people out of nowhere, what the hell is your problem.”

Kang Geom-ma bared his teeth savagely. Then he rammed Murasame into the ghost’s left cheek.

The blade dug through the flesh of her cheek and poked out from the opposite side.

Originally he would have swung his arm and cut off the neck. But the space was too cramped.

Kkiyaaaaak!

The pink-shoes ghost let out a scream. The heels of her shoes struck the restroom tiles in flashy rhythm. The noise of the ghostly shriek and her steps scattered far and wide. It was only a matter of time before the ghosts rampaging in the corridor noticed.

Sure enough, footsteps boomed from outside. At least several dozen of them. They all carried urgency in their steps, like people who desperately needed to take a dump.

Kang Geom-ma ground a curse between his teeth.

‘Damn it, the restroom has only three stalls, but there are dozens of these bastards coming?’

As he carved up the ghost’s face with his blade, Kang Geom-ma quickly revised his plan.

Get out of the boys’ restroom, which had served as his base, and then work out another strategy.

‘First, this lady ghost who trespassed into the boys’ restroom.’

Peeping. Even if she was a ghost, this bastard had committed a crime. She had to receive the corresponding punishment. Perverts especially.

Kang Geom-ma yanked the sword hilt powerfully downward. The swift blade smoothly severed the jawbone.

From the empty lower half of her face, a purple tongue coated white with filth dangled limply.

Bang!

Kang Geom-ma kicked the stall door. The ghost, knocked backward together with the door, crumpled into the urinal. Water shot up high from the shattered urinal.

The pink-shoes ghost, with her jaw gone, only let out choking groans.

At the same time, she regretted it. She had never imagined he would be this much of a tough guy.

Before long Kang Geom-ma stepped out of the toilet stall. Grabbing her by the shoulder, he spun her around and around. Then he stopped before the urinal and lowered his gaze.

“If you were in such a hurry for the restroom, you should’ve gone into the stall next door. What kind of person peeps into an occupied stall? And to begin with, a woman coming into the men’s restroom was already wrong.”

In a voice thick with weariness, Kang Geom-ma lectured her. The ghost frantically slashed with her nails.

“Kkeeeehk!”

Kang Geom-ma dodged the attack with a tilt of his head and then swung Murasame.

Seogeok!

The body that had lost its head slid down the urinal.

“And once you get to the underworld, learn to knock first, bastard.”

At that moment, a line of text floated before his eyes.

[NEW! By fulfilling the special condition for the Authority of the Underworld King, `Defeat (50) or more entities of the (Ghost) attribute,` a new ability has been unlocked.]

Pahht-

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◈ New Ability

: Entities of the Ghost attribute cut down with this weapon could be commanded with no limit on number.

: The effect did not persist permanently, and the duration was limited to 10 minutes.

: The current number of entities you might command was a total of (32).

== ==

“…What is this now?”

I stared at the status window with eyes gone round.

I might have been even more surprised than when the pink-shoes ghost stuck her face through the stall door.

Authority of the Underworld King. I hadn’t used it since that battle with Bentetta.

It wasn’t very practical when I could only command one entity.

But now it was saying that taboo had been lifted, at least for the Ghost attribute.

I had always been weak to mass-assault tactics.

That was also why I preferred duels or skirmishes.

But with this new ability, I could gain the upper hand even in a battle of numbers.

Just before hiding in the restroom, there had been a building map posted on the corridor wall. I had looked at it out of the corner of my eye, just in case.

So I had roughly memorized the structure of the building.

Thinking back, there had definitely been one peculiarity in this building.

Each classroom had room numbers written like an apartment building, 101, 102, 103… and so on. That in itself had been unusual.

‘Normally they’d be labelled art room, woodworking room, music room, and the like.’

But what truly caught my eye had been something else. The fourth floor had been replaced with the character for death, and on top of that, the position of Room 404 had been marked with the characters `Death Spirit Death.`

At the time I’d wondered what that was supposed to mean, but after seeing the status window and communicating with it, the pieces had begun to fit together. Room 404. The `core` of this dungeon was there.

I took advantage of the lull to think. My current position was the second floor. Even so, the enemies were pouring out.

Then what about the third and fourth floors above? The likelihood was high that they were crawling with them like a swarm of bees.

That had been what I was worried about, and right on cue the special condition for the Authority of the Underworld King had been unlocked.

‘Lucky.’

If I farmed enough, this side could just watch in comfort.

If the ten-minute limit ran out, I could just cut down a few more and refill the numbers.

The essence of K-mobile games, `auto-hunting,` but in reality!

I felt my heart pounding. Strength entered my hands.

Vitality began returning to my tired body. It was because of the resonance carried in the words auto-hunting.

It meant I needed to cut down even more of these ghost bastards, but the number I’d already gathered was thirty.

If I pushed a bit, three digits would come quickly enough. The more allies, the better.

“There he is!”

Right on time, the ghost mob surged into the restroom like a tsunami.

They glared at Kang Geom-ma with their eyes flashing eerily.

Their number looked to be around fifty by rough glance. The battle line gathered in chaos resembled a tangled skein of thread.

In contrast, Kang Geom-ma stood there alone. He faced the growling mob of ghosts. A meaningful sneer spread across his lips.

“If I wipe them all out, that should bring me to roughly a hundred.”

Without the slightest hesitation, Kang Geom-ma threw himself toward the ghosts.

One wet footprint after another stamped onto the soaked restroom tiles. Chalbak, chalbak. The sound of light splashing accompanied him.

At the sight of him charging in with excitement, the ghosts’ pupils shrank. He was smiling in a situation like this? But what they failed to grasp was this.

Just how frightening a Korean was when farming stood before him.

* * *

Ghostly shrieks filled the haunted building.

Kkiiaaaaaaaaak……!

A human crazed for farming butchered the ghosts. It was a scene in which the roles of human and ghost had reversed.

Ghosts collapsed one after another under indifferent slashes.

Kang Geom-ma shook the blood from his blade. Then he looked around.

Corpses packed the corridor completely. There wasn’t even room to set a foot down.

And yet he didn’t look especially satisfied.

‘I’m still hungry.’

That was the phrase that best represented his current state of mind.

Having finished hunting on the second floor, Kang Geom-ma moved his steps toward the floor above.

It wasn’t enough for him to feel full yet. Murasame and Permafrost too sang with a sharp keen as though in agreement.

He moved to the third floor to fill his hungry stomach.

* * *

Unlike the second floor, the third floor was deeply quiet.

There was only a well standing alone in the middle of the corridor.

It felt as though a single scene from a horror film had been copied and pasted into place.

Kang Geom-ma couldn’t hide his disappointment. He had come up here because there wasn’t enough game downstairs, yet the upper floor was in drought.

Was this exactly how a farmer felt in a year of famine.

It was then.

Kkigik.

A hand suddenly thrust up out of the well. Veins clung over the colorless skin like a spiderweb.

The owner of the hand slowly crawled up out of the well. She was the archetypal maiden ghost.

Staggering forward with her hair hanging down in front, she approached.

“M-my, myy, na-name is Ma, Ma, Mal-suk……”

In a dry, withered voice, she gave a self-introduction no one had asked for.

“Youuu are reeally, reaaally handsome. Be my husbanddd.”

“What nonsense.”

The maiden ghost split her mouth wide open. The inside of it was black to a degree that felt hollow. Ink dripped from every hole.

“Hoho, being alooone is toooo lonelyyyyy!”

Spreading both arms wide like someone who had found the partner of her life, the maiden ghost welcomed him. Kang Geom-ma looked at her with clear indifference.

“You look about like a mid-boss, more or less.”

He had been a little disappointed, but now he had struck luck. Her way of speaking made her seem a bit dim, but the magic power coming off her was anything but ordinary. By his estimate, she was around the level of a B-rank magical beast.

If the second floor had been quantity, then the third floor was quality.

If he strengthened his forces qualitatively by means of the maiden ghost, they’d be reborn as a much sturdier army.

Kang Geom-ma let out a low laugh. Then he raised one hand. It was time to check the results of his farming.

Kugugugung.

The floor trembled. The maiden ghost, who had only just come out of the well, staggered. She quickly regained her balance and looked at Kang Geom-ma.

“Wh-what did you doooo?”

Kang Geom-ma answered:

“Did you say you were lonely.”

“……?”

“I think you’re going to regret those words.”

The next moment, the maiden ghost felt a kind of shuddering terror impossible to describe. A massive pressure tightened around her throat so hard that even the skin below her eyes trembled.

Kkeueoooooough……

A tangled groaning cry climbed up the stairs. Evil spirits numbering at least a hundred. They gathered behind Kang Geom-ma.

With one flick of his hand. At that, the ghost mob formed ranks as though declaring themselves followers of that human. All of those movements took place under Kang Geom-ma’s control.

The maiden ghost staggered backward. But it was already too late. Kang Geom-ma gave a signal with the hand he’d raised.

“She says she’s lonely. Make sure she won’t be alone.”

“W-w-wait a moment……!”

The ghosts surged down the narrow corridor like a tsunami.

The maiden ghost, Mal-suk, hurriedly dove back into the well she had crawled out of.

There were countless questions racing through her mind, but first she had to flee. Survival was what mattered.

‘I can’t die again while still a maiden!’

But the ghosts were sucked noisily down into the well.

Mal-suk stared blankly upward at the group of outsiders flowing into her lair. Then she too was swept up in it.

A screaming cry burst out from the depths of the well. Then it stopped almost immediately.

Mal-suk died without fulfilling her long-cherished wish.

Only then did Kang Geom-ma begin walking over. Toward the staircase on the opposite side of the corridor.

The evil spirits that had completed their task crawled back up out of the well and followed behind him. Mal-suk was among them.

Step, step.

A long trailing procession. Hundreds of ghosts escorted the human at its head.

Even their stride length and footsteps seemed to have become one with his. Here and there, ghostly flames lit the road he took through the darkness.

One Hundred Ghosts’ Night Parade. The spirits of the dead strode across the nine heavens.

At their head stood a human who presided over the King of the Dead, Kang Geom-ma.

To bring this dreadful nightmare to its close, to cut off this unusually long night, he advanced while leading the ghosts imprisoned in this den of monsters.

As he walked, he suddenly recited words that passed through his mind. It was the phrase that had surfaced when he obtained the Deathless Mana Stone.

“Listen to the voices of the dead. Then they shall open the gate of the underworld and answer your call.”

Kkeueoooooooough!

The ghosts let out eerie cries.

It was their night greeting, declaring the procession of the Underworld King.