Chapter 168

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Translated by Pratt

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“Aagh!”

The woman suddenly screamed and collapsed to the ground.

She was a woman with a much larger build than ordinary women.

The mother of three children, and Urtian’s wife.

The woman’s name was Deborah.

Deborah was a tamer.

The insignia on her wrist showed that her rank was C-rank.

Deborah curled up like a shrimp and endured the agony. She could not even breathe properly against the pain that made it feel as though her head would split apart and her body would burst open.

Urtian was sitting beside Deborah.

“Are you all right?”

“Haa! Haa! I’m… all right now.”

“What happened?”

“The griffins I tamed have all died.”

“That can’t be…”

Urtian wore an expression that said he could not believe it.

Among flying demonic beasts, griffins belonged to the upper tier.

They were so savage and powerful that even a high-ranking tamer would find it impossible to domesticate them.

Even Deborah had only been able to tame the griffins by borrowing the power of an item called the Collar of Subjugation hanging around her neck.

The Collar of Subjugation was a powerful item that allowed one to tame even demonic beasts of a higher rank than oneself.

The problem was that it linked the minds of the demonic beast and the Awakened, so if either one was harmed, the other would also suffer tremendous damage.

That was Deborah’s condition now.

As the griffins she had barely managed to tame through the Collar of Subjugation died, she too felt the pain of her entire body being torn apart.

Urtian asked again.

“Are you certain the griffins are dead?”

“Yes! Both of them are dead.”

“Did they go down near the ground and get caught?”

“I don’t know that much. I did order them not to descend to the ground.”

“And they still died? Then the Pegasus Raid Force must be more formidable than I thought.”

“It seems so.”

“Then the Twin Head Buffaloes must have scattered.”

“They must have.”

Without the griffins, there was no way to gather the Twin Head Buffalo herds scattered throughout the desert into one group and drive them toward where the Pegasus Raid Force was.

Since the griffins had died, the Twin Head Buffaloes they had gathered with such difficulty had obviously scattered as well.

“An unforeseen variable.”

“I’m sorry.”

Their original plan had been to use the Twin Head Buffaloes to inflict great damage on the Pegasus Raid Force. But because the griffins died in the middle of it, they probably had not suffered as much damage as planned.

Urtian pressed his lips to Deborah’s forehead and said, “It’s all right. It’ll be a little more troublesome, but it’ll work out the way we want in the end anyway.”

***

“Haa! Haa! We lived.”

“Fuck! We almost died.”

The Awakened of the raid force panted heavily while sprawled across the ground.

The area was littered with the corpses of Twin Head Buffaloes and Awakened. Most of them were Twin Head Buffalo carcasses, but the number of dead Awakened was not small enough to ignore.

At least fifty Awakened had lost their lives to the Twin Head Buffaloes’ assault.

In particular, many of the mercenary Awakened who had joined them had died.

An even bigger problem was the vehicles.

A large number of vehicles had been smashed or completely destroyed by the Twin Head Buffaloes’ charge.

Lee Ji-ryeong looked over the battlefield with eyes full of fury.

He had led the Pegasus Raid Force for a long time, but this was the first time they had suffered such heavy damage before even entering the dungeon.

Lee Ji-ryeong approached where Zeon was.

His gaze turned toward the sand where Zeon had ground up the griffins.

The sand was stained red with the griffins’ blood.

“You’re saying the griffins drove the Twin Head Buffaloes here?”

“Yes.”

“That absolutely wasn’t natural.”

Lee Ji-ryeong’s gaze turned cold.

Maybe it would have been different if it were a high-grade demonic beast above A-rank, but it was absolutely impossible for a nearly mindless, savage demonic beast like a griffin to use other demonic beasts in this way.

“Did someone command the griffins?”

“At this point, that seems the most likely possibility.”

“Unbelievable. Even a high-ranking tamer would find it difficult to tame savage demonic beasts like griffins.”

“If they had the help of an item, it’s possible.”

“Are such items common?”

“Absolutely not.”

At Zeon’s reply, Lee Ji-ryeong bit his lip until it bled.

“Scavengers. And a highly organized group at that…”

The only people who could release tamed demonic beasts and ambush the raid force were scavengers.

The scavengers who had survived a long time in the desert had mastered numerous ways of survival that the Awakened of the city did not know. But this was the first time he had seen a scavenger group that used tamed demonic beasts like this.

That was why Lee Ji-ryeong thought the enemy was a very large scavenger group.

“It looks like we’ve become the target of quite a large force. Geonbangjin!”

Bzzzt!

White lightning erupted from Lee Ji-ryeong’s whole body.

It meant his anger was that great.

Zeon silently watched him.

“Captain!”

Keldara hurried over to Lee Ji-ryeong.

“What is it?”

“Two transport vehicles are missing.”

“What?”

“It seems they escaped in the confusion.”

“Those sons of bitches…”

Lee Ji-ryeong, fury climbing to the top of his head, stared at Keldara with a terrifying gaze.

Deserters had appeared in the raid force. That was the same as saying they did not trust the Pegasus Raid Force and its captain, Lee Ji-ryeong.

That was a matter of Lee Ji-ryeong’s authority.

A raid force whose authority had fallen would later have trouble replenishing its personnel.

“Shall I send a pursuit squad?”

“How many deserters are there?”

“We estimate about thirty in total.”

“Thirty escaped? They must think very little of me… Form a pursuit squad immediately and bring them back.”

“Understood.”

Keldara withdrew as she answered.

She had already finished organizing the pursuit squad.

Three buggies carrying the pursuit squad left the Pegasus Raid Force.

Levin, who had been watching the pursuit squad depart with Zeon, opened his mouth.

“To think there’d be so many deserters from the very start.”

“Awakened around Neo Seoul hunt demonic beasts on a regular basis, so even they don’t get many chances to face something like this.”

“So it’s a problem of experience.”

“That’s right. If you hadn’t experienced a dungeon, you probably would have lost your wits at their attack too.”

“Come on. I’m not that bad.”

Zeon gave a faint smile at Levin’s vehement denial.

His gaze turned toward Lee Ji-ryeong.

Unable to hide his anger, Lee Ji-ryeong was still radiating a dark atmosphere.

It made sense. They had not even reached the dungeon yet, and many people had already died and deserted.

Even if most of them were mercenary Awakened brought along to fill numbers, it was impossible for him to feel good about it.

‘All I can do is pray this doesn’t have too much of an effect on the dungeon raid…’

In any case, there was no way they could leave this place today.

They had to recover the corpses and repair the broken vehicles.

The Awakened of the Pegasus Raid Force shouted as they busily moved around.

Zeon turned his head and looked toward the sand dune.

It was where the griffin corpses he had shredded a little earlier were buried.

When Zeon lightly lifted his hand, the sand parted to both sides, revealing the griffins’ corpses.

The state of the griffins was miserable.

All of the feathers had been torn away, and the flesh had been flayed off, leaving almost nothing but bones and joints. But there was one shining stone between the bones.

It was the magic stone of a B-rank demonic beast.

The mana contained inside it was considerable, so demand for it was quite high.

“But this one seems special.”

Zeon picked up the griffin’s magic stone and examined it closely.

Among magic stones, special ones would occasionally appear.

The purity of the mana sensed from such magic stones itself was different.

Zeon held the magic stone up to the sunlight. Then he could see a red aura rippling inside it.

The red aura writhed as if it were a living life-form, trying to break out of the magic stone.

“It’s carrying a skill.”

Sometimes magic stones carrying skills would come from demonic beasts of B-rank or higher.

To be exact, the demonic beast’s mana compressed into the magic stone Awakened latent potential and caused a skill to bloom.

Such magic stones were extremely rare, so Awakened searched for them with bloodshot eyes.

It was because just taking one could raise one’s original abilities without too much difficulty.

The problem was that there was no way to know what kind of skill would emerge from such a magic stone.

If things went wrong, there was a possibility that a skill would emerge that did not match the affinity of a skill one already possessed.

That was why Zeon too had only absorbed one skill-bearing magic stone so far.

Fortunately, the extreme regeneration he had obtained had excellent affinity and did not negatively affect the Authority of Sand in any way.

After that, he had not absorbed any magic stones carrying skills.

At that moment Brielle’s voice rang out.

“Is that by any chance a magic stone carrying a skill?”

“Hm?”

“It is, right?”

“Yeah! It is.”

Since there was no need to hide it anyway, Zeon answered honestly.

“Can I take a look?”

“Sure!”

Zeon handed the magic stone to Brielle.

Brielle closed her eyes while holding the magic stone in her hand.

Zeon quietly watched Brielle.

It was impossible for a human like him, but since Brielle was a High Elf, she might be able to figure out the skill.

After a long while, Zeon asked Brielle, who opened her eyes, “Did you figure out what kind of skill it’s carrying?”

“I can’t be certain, but I can roughly guess what kind of skill it is.”

“So what skill is it carrying?”

“I think it’s a skill related to the griffin’s control.”

“A skill like the one the griffins used to control the Twin Head Buffaloes?”

“But even if you absorb this magic stone, I can’t guarantee you’ll get the same skill. The skill in a magic stone literally just stimulates possibility and makes it bloom.”

Even if one absorbed the same magic stone, the resulting skill changed depending on what skills the Awakened already had and what kind of growth potential they possessed. That was why it was difficult.

Brielle spoke cautiously.

“I think it’d be better to use it as a material rather than having someone absorb it directly.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! If it’s used in alchemy, I think it’ll probably gain an effect related to that side.”

The eyes Brielle turned toward Zeon were full of earnestness.

Zeon did not care enough to wonder what that meant.

Zeon smiled faintly and said, “Then you use it.”

“Can I really?”

“It’d be much better for you to use it than for someone else to. Do whatever you want with it.”

“Thank you! Zeon. I’ll make something really awesome. Please look forward to it!”

“Sure!”

Making sure no one was watching, Brielle quickly slipped the magic stone into her pointed hat.

She had not told Levin yet, but her pointed hat had been enchanted with subspace.

It was smaller than the subspace backpack Levin carried, but it still had enough room to hold all the various tools Brielle used.

“Hehe!”

Delighted, Brielle ran back to the buggy.

Left alone, Zeon moved the sand and buried the griffins’ corpses deep beneath it.

If anyone learned that a magic stone had come from the griffins, the Awakened might target it.

Not that Zeon would be the kind to suffer because of it, but the fewer variables there were, the better.

Rrrrk!

The griffins’ corpses sank dozens of meters underground as if they were riding an elevator.

After perfectly hiding the traces, Zeon naturally returned to his companions.