“P… Please let me off this one time, human. I am setting aside my pride as the king to ask this of you…”
Marakia spoke with an unusually mature tone. Even going as far as using words like “King’s Pride”.
Sungchul had never seen him like this. For a moment, Sungchul recalled Marakia’s awe inspiring figure from before he had regressed into the egg.
‘Is he being sincere?’
Marakia continued to speak.
“I must… there is something I must buy without fail… Please…”
Bertelgia trembled strongly while watching him.
“I guess we should forgive him just this once.”
Bertelgia must have noticed that Marakia was acting different from usual.
“What are you trying to buy?” Even before Sungchul could ask, she flew out of his pocket to ask Marakia in her usual energetic voice.
Marakia’s eyes wavered for a moment.
“L…Living book!”
“Quickly, out with it! This guy, he’s really an impatient person.”
To this, Marakia replied with a tiny voice, with tears welling up in his big eyes.
“F…Final Elixir.”
“Final Elixir?”
Marakia nodded to confirm Bertelgia’s question
“The Dungeon shop is selling Final Elixir that can undo the Curse of Extinction. I am thinking of administering it to one of my people.”
Though it led to a bit of a ruckus, Marakia’s plan was in fact commendable.
He hadn’t spoken a word about it to Sungchul during their travels, but it seemed as though the fate of his people in the north weighed heavily in his heart.
They had left a warning with the Cave Elves, but that wasn’t enough to feel at ease. He needed someone trustworthy who he could depend on to take care of his people in his absence.
And that’s when he discovered it. The Final Elixir.
‘He’s doesn’t know how to properly ask for help.’
“…”
Sungchul released Marakia along with the Dungeon Tokens that he had confiscated. It goes without saying that he didn’t subtract the 30 Dungeon Tokens he had initially come to take back.
Instead, Sungchul asked Marakia a question.
“Are you able to gather 2000 more tokens?”
In the Dungeon Store, the healing-type consumables were the most blatantly overpriced category of goods. And of them, at the top was the strongest healing potion of all; Final Elixir. And the price for this highest tier potion was 3000 Tokens.
With that many tokens, it was possible to obtain two combat-stat boosting Essence of Spirits.
Marakia only having managed to gather slightly more than a thousand or so in the same length of time it took for Sungchul to become able to rub two 10,000 Tokens together meant that Marakia was unable to pass all the Ultimate Trials like Sungchul had been.
“If only I was a bit bigger…”
Marakia let his head drop out of bitterness.
“I’m not able to eat properly… Even sleep, I had to spend the night outside… All to try and save one token…”
Marakia did seem much thinner than Sungchul remembered. And his typically fluffy feather seemed to have lost much of its shine and luster.
There was a big difference from when he was with Sungchul and had access to all sorts of luxuries.
Marakia had been struggling alone all this time. Not only was he running away from Sungchul, he even subjected himself to starvation for the sake of a single Token.
“I need to be eating well during my growth period…”
Marakia said with great sorrow without raising his head.
“…Mmm.”
A sigh finally escaped from Sungchul’s lips. No one knew if it was supposed to be positive or negative reaction.
But Bertelgia felt like she could guess what is going through Sungchul’s mind. And as if to validate her thoughts, Sungchul opened his Soul Storage and tossed something towards the crestfallen Marakia.
Clack.
Two 1000 Dungeon Tokens. After subtracting the entry fee for the nineth Ultimate Trial, this was a massive portion of his total earnings; two thirds of his three thousand something Tokens he had earned thus far.
“Take it.”
“P…Pii…?”
Marakia raised his head to look up at Sungchul with glistening eyes.
“H…Human…!”
Sungchul turned around without expressing any emotions before calmly talking.
“Buy what you need right now. Before I change my mind.”
Marakia used his tiny adorable hands to pick up the two 1000 Dungeon Tokens and went sprinting off towards the Exchange Shop as if his life depended on it.
“You, are you really ok with this?”
Bertelgia asked as if she hadn’t expected this.
“…”
“I didn’t think you had it in you to care for that pigeon over there. But here we are.”
“It’s not exactly ‘caring for’. I do still have unpaid debt to him.”
Sungchul remembered.
That day in the throne room of the Avian Kingdom, if Marakia hadn’t made the ultimate sacrifice, then the conclusion of the first Calamity would have been greatly delayed.
But that wasn’t the only reason for his mercy.
Bertelgia knew.
“Hmm. Could it be that, despite how you normally seem, you’re actually a softie inside?”
Bertelgia landed on Sungchul and asked with a teasing voice.
“W… What are you saying?”
Sungchul shook his shoulders to drop Bertelgia and made his way towards the Hotel.
Bertelgia chuckled to herself as she watched Sungchul be in a rush to get away.
‘You don’t know how to be honest with yourself, do you?’
Meanwhile, Marakia’s appearance came like a Calamity to another.
“N…Nahak!”
Dillo Buron saw the black feathered Marakia appear at the boulevard and immediately scrambled to escape.
“Nahak! A Nahak has appeared!”
But no one came to his aid. Or come chase him for that matter.
The only one who became terrified was Dillo Buron alone. For whatever reason, he seemed to have a bad memory of the Avian people.
“Whats up with him?”
Bertelgia and Sungchul remained silent as they watched Dillo Buron scurry away in absolute and utter terror.
But as they were going to head back into their lodging, Sungchul stopped for a moment to look behind him.
“…”
“What is it?”
Bertelgia had entered the doorway first and turned to ask Sungchul, who shook his head and followed her inside.
“It must have been my imagination.”
Despite his words, Sungchul scanned the surroundings with a sharp gaze before returning indoors.
“Whew…”
A sigh of relief could be coming from seemingly empty, thin air.
“I almost got caught.”
At the corner of the Plaza in the alley way, a man’s voice could be heard.
Unlike Dillo Buron, this voice was energetic and bright. But the most surprising fact was the giant bull-headed divinity standing at his side.
“Why have someone of your status show interest in a mere Challenger?”
The Dungeon Aegehios asked into the empty air.
There was no reply from the unseen being.
He continued to stare at the entrance of the Dragon Hotel where Sungchul had disappeared into.
Then there was another round of shrieks of terror from Dillo Buron from the distance. This caused the invisible being to mutter to himself.
“Mmm. That delivery boy of Tromeia, should I have just kicked him out?”
“We could kick him out now if you wish.”
Aegehios replied. The unseen being shook his head and let out a deep sigh before opening his mouth.
“There’s no need. In any case, that man. He’s peculiar.”
“Peculiar?”
“Very much so. It is difficult for me to believe that that man is capable of committing such terrible acts. But on the other hand, there might be no one better suited than him.”
A Magical reaction appeared from within the void where the voice was coming from. It was a portal. Without having shown himself, he walked towards the Portal.
“I still haven’t heard your answer yet.”
Aegehios called out to him.
The being hidden in the void replied with a cheerful tone of voice.
“Go ahead and unlock the Hidden Trial to him as promised.”
“Are you sure about this? He has yet to unlock all of the hidden rewards yet.”
Aegehios asked to confirm.
“It’s ok. No one capable of completing the Hidden Trial will ever appear again.”
“I deem your reply to be an insufficient answer.”
Aegehios stood in his way. And to this, the man simply opened up another portal next to Aegehios and replied in his characteristically cheerful voice.
“It’s because that man is going to destroy the world.”
To this, Aegehios’s giant figure froze up for a moment.
The man put Aegehios behind and turned to the portal.
“Even if the world now is but an empty shell without substance.”
With those words left behind, he disappeared beyond the portal.
All magical energies disappeared along with him, leaving no trace that he had ever been here.
The peace of the otherwise serene Blanche Plaza was punctuated only by the Dillo Buron’s pitiful cries of terror in the distance.
“… You say some strange things sometimes…”
Aegehios stood for a while ruminating over what he had been told before finally turning around and muttering to himself.
“Dungeon Master.”
*
Between the human civil war and the invasion of the Colossi, the Frontline of the Demon World was widely known to be annihilated. But one faction that held the frontline remained in fully combat ready in the region.
At the Western regions of the Demon Realm where it meets the forest, the area under the protection of the Varan-Aran Alliance was still under careful watch.
The force made up of mostly elves remained vigilant in the north despite the Demons’ inexplicable extinction.
It was because they experienced and knew too well of the demons’ cunning over centuries of experience.
One elvan scouts were patrolling the barren lands of ice and fire at the border of the forest.
The silence of the night was punctuated by occasional geysers in the distance.
It was a night much like any other. But the elves did not let down their vigilance.
Soon, one elf pointed towards the long valley corridor that leads into the Demon Realm.
“There. Something’s there.”
And unbelievably, it was a group of humans. And the number of humans increased more and more until a giant horde of few thousand individuals could be seen.
These humans were carrying clubs wearing fur clothes, perhaps a few crude pieces of armor. But overall, the weapon and clothes they carried were of uncivilized savages.
The Elves did not drop their guard despite their surprise.
“They could be disguised Demons.”
“They could be fallen humans from long ago who migrated into the Demon lands.”
The vigilance of the elves quickly transformed into that of surprise as the human horde grew closer.
From them could be heard cries of babies and children. It was sounds that were unheard of in the past few decades. The Elven scouts couldn’t contain their surprise to find that there were children and babies amongst this group of humans. This was a greater shock to them than the reappearance of the Demons would have been.
“Was the Curse of Extinction undone?”
“That can’t be. The Curse of Extinction is still active.”
It was while the elves were murmuring amongst themselves.
One of the human males at the head of the horde turned to look directly at where the elves were hiding.
“Are we discovered?”
“No way. This is outside the detection range of even the best among humans.”
Elves had thought that the human had looked in their general direction by coincidence. But a moment later, the man suddenly and completely disappeared from their sight. Once again, the elves were forced to doubt their famous eagle eyes.
“What?”
One of the elvan archer muttered himself as he felt chill go down his spine.
Then he felt a powerful impact strike him in his back like thunder and got lifted up into the air.
“Kagh!”
Red blood spewed out of his mouth on their own. The elvan archer turned to see what was lifting him up from behind.
‘T…That’s…?’
It was the human that had looked in their direction earlier.
‘When…?’
That was the last thought he had. The savage barbarian separated the elf’s head from his body with bare hands.
Splat.
As blood came pouring out, the surviving elves looked upon the barbarian that had appeared between them with terror gripping their hearts.
“Draw swords!”
Clang.
The elves all simultaneously drew their daggers. But their fate was already sealed.
After a storm-like wind blew past the scouts, the only thing that remained were the unrecognizably torn remains of the elves.
The barbarians looked up past the corpses of the elves towards the direction of the vast forest ahead with curiosity or perhaps bloodlust.
As if to show that the bloodshed just now merely marked the beginning, the Barbarians stepped through the elven remains towards the forest.
Powerful guardians of the northern forests who successfully defended the Storm Battlefront at the frontlines of the Demon Realm shoulder to shoulder with the Blood Iron Knights, who continued to watch over the northern regions in the aftermath… the specifics about the final moments of this Alliance will henceforth forever remain unknown to history.
But through word of mouth from few survivors, the most important fact was made known to the world at large.
“A terrifying nomadic tribe has appeared in the north. One that do not understand the languages of this world. And they are migrating south, destroying everything in their wake, possessing lifeforce and god-like strength not permitted to mortals of this world.”
But now that the World Parliament was effectively dissolved, there was no faction in this world strong enough to face these barbarians.
There was only one hope.
The session of World Parliament that is slated to take place at the ruins of Ixion in not-too-distant future.
The man who had called for a session with his authority as the creator of the World Parliament was currently at the south western corner of the continent, at the God’s Dungeon.
[Hidden Trial]
Sungchul glared out over the indifferent wilderness, waiting for his enemies to show up.
Soon, something appeared before him.
Countless little sparks of light emerged from the darkness like the stars above.
Sungchul took deep breathes as he glared at his foe.
‘So the only things that remain is the Hidden Trial and the Final Trial.’
The trials of Aegehios was reaching its final stages.
2 more chapters released. Click Next chap to continue reading.
To get MCHHS Book 4 – Click here
Thank you!
“One elvan scouts were patrolling”
Either singular or plural, not both at the same time.