Chapter 45.
Others would have cheered at saving six months of grinding and pressed [1. Yes]. But my choice was different.
“My choice is obviously ‘No.’”
[You have canceled the class change]
“You are not ready yet.”
I dragged Lee A-un out of the class-change site.
[Fairy... Fairy? Where did you go?]
“Are you dreaming?”
I felt good.
The plan I had established was falling perfectly into place without a single error.
Emperor Raising, stage one.
Using the loophole called a ‘curse,’ I prepared Lee A-un to change class into the Apex of the Black Magic branch.
Up to this point, everything had progressed without issue.
Now came stage two.
“This is where it gets a bit harsh...”
In Lost Honor, there was a realm permitted to only a very small number of NPCs.
A supreme realm that only NPCs evaluated as ‘geniuses’ could step into.
That was possessing two classes at the same time.
A ‘Dual Class.’
I wanted to explain at length just how shocking this was, but...
To compress it into exactly two lines.
...That was about it.
There were only two Dual Class holders.
One was Artier, the manager NPC of my hideout.
The other was the ‘Hero,’ who possessed the setting of being the strongest in my world.
Of these two, the Hero was the only one who had legitimately achieved a Dual Class.
‘As for Artier, I forcibly gave her a Dual Class.’
In other words, among the countless NPCs in this vast world...
Only the small minority with ‘aptitude’ could change classes.
Among that minority, only a handful could reach an ‘Apex.’
And even among the extremely few who reached an ‘Apex,’ only one person could possess a Dual Class.
It was truly insane difficulty.
“Hmm.”
I fell into thought as I looked around the storage.
In this world, one could only change classes into fields where one had aptitude.
However, the standard for this aptitude was extremely high.
When considering Lee A-un’s case.
He was a man marked as a sacrifice by none other than an ‘Outer God,’ and he was a superior specimen with a ‘Pure Soul’ recognized by reality’s system.
Yet in Lost Honor, he was nothing more than a commoner with only three aptitudes.
I had forcibly created the remaining three aptitudes, which allowed him to reach the ‘Apex,’ but...
This was a trick possible only because Lee A-un already had aptitude for Black Magic.
To be honest, creating an aptitude that did not exist at all was impossible.
However!
In this world, there was a method that made even the impossible possible.
Exactly one.
A Genesis-rank item.
In other words, the problem would be solved if I equipped Lee A-un with a Genesis-rank item possessing a Genesis Trait that created aptitude for him.
The only problem was that I did not have the materials right now.
But there was a solution.
***
Lee A-un felt as though he was going insane.
—■■■
Woooo—
‘Please shut up already!’
He was suffering from a horrific sensation, as though the buzzing voice inside his head were kneading his brain.
It was a voice, but he could not understand the words.
It felt as though an enormous whale were firing ultrasonic waves directly into his ear.
The strange thing was that he understood what it meant.
The meaning conveyed by that enormous voice was largely two things.
Immense hunger. And ‘the sound of smacking its lips.’
‘Huuu.’
The moment he was thrown out of the space where the fairy calling herself a god had been, something enormous and evil had been watching him while smacking its lips.
He felt like meat on a table.
Amid that terror and revulsion, Lee A-un’s mind shook precariously.
—■■■
Woooo—
Lee A-un was being carried like luggage by Brother’s character.
The black man seemed to be moving an unimaginably vast distance by leaping through the air several times and crossing dimensions.
Exhausted, Lee A-un prayed desperately for this pain to end quickly.
The reason Lee A-un’s mind could keep from collapsing was that every time the voice opened its mouth wide, golden energy surged from deep within his soul and protected him.
Each time, the voice smacked its lips and withdrew, but the problem was that the golden energy was gradually weakening.
‘This is... the energy of the elixir Brother first gave me to drink.’
It was starting to become... dangerous.
Just as Lee A-un broke out in cold sweat.
Whoosh.
“Urgh!”
Lee A-un was suddenly thrown away by the black man.
After rolling across the floor, Lee A-un hurriedly looked around first.
It was a dark and ominous space.
And it was an extremely wide clearing.
Thud. Thud.
Two golden elixirs fell in front of Lee A-un.
‘This is!’
It was that elixir!
‘If I am late, I will be eaten!’
Desperate like a hunted beast, Lee A-un hurriedly shoved the two elixirs that had fallen to the floor into his mouth.
Immediately after drinking them all, Lee A-un felt nauseous.
‘Uuurgh.’
His stomach felt uncomfortable.
His head spun.
‘All of a sudden?’
His flesh seemed to sway left and right.
His soul seemed to sway up and down.
An unpleasant feeling, as though his body and soul were separating, suddenly came over him.
It felt as though his body was no longer his own.
He sensed a dimension of ‘wrongness’ different from the Mana Reflux seizures.
“Urgh...!”
With a short scream, the moment Lee A-un collapsed onto the floor.
Wooooong!
Along with violent vibrations, pitch-black energy rose from Lee A-un’s entire body.
Flash!
The black energy stretched straight up toward the sky like a tree growing with Lee A-un as its root.
Then, the energy that had extended endlessly spread wide like an umbrella and covered the clearing.
Kiiiiiiik—!
Along with a chilling sound as though space itself were being torn apart, a black crack formed in midair.
Kiiiiii!
The crack twisted into a bizarre shape incomprehensible to human reason and forced open a dimensional gate.
From beyond it, an indescribable ominousness began to crawl out.
‘Haaah...!’
He could not specify its form.
It looked like a mass of shadows changing from moment to moment.
It also looked like twisted flesh covered in countless eyeballs.
At times, it even seemed like empty void itself.
As though its very existence were an error and a source of revulsion, the moment he witnessed it, an indescribable disgust surged up within him.
“Auu... Agh!”
Burning pain surged from deep within his soul.
Thump— Thump—!
The pain had a rhythmic beat, as though it were pulsing.
Lee A-un instinctively realized it.
Around the time he had first been possessed into this world, at the boundary between dream and reality, the source of the sticky, ominous whisper that had been consuming him was ‘that thing.’
“Aaaagh...!”
It felt as though the ‘curse’ embedded deep within his soul were screaming.
—My seed... How dare...
What he heard was an incomprehensible language.
However, its meaning burrowed directly into Lee A-un’s soul.
That was why he could understand what it meant.
Relief. Joy. Offense. Rage.
Countless other emotions that could not be expressed in words surged into him.
“Kuaaaagh!”
Lee A-un vomited blood and collapsed.
Amid the agony of his soul being torn to shreds, his entire body bent as though it might snap.
‘It is over... It is all over.’
What flooded in was not only emotion.
He also felt the screams of the things that being had devoured until now.
Because of that, Lee A-un learned what that ‘Outer God’ had been eating.
They were the screams of stars.
Predators that wandered the universe and devoured planets.
If there were ranks of strength, they were absolute beings who would correspond to the highest ‘god’ grade.
Amid the rushing emotions and information, Lee A-un indirectly experienced their strength.
The crack closed.
Like stretching after waking, the God from Outer Space greatly swelled its flickering body.
—This star... where is this... very... interesting...
At that moment.
The black man stepped forward.
—U... Mm?
Giiiiing!
An enormous amount of Mana began to surge.
And without any warning, a pitch-black sphere suddenly appeared in front of the black man.
‘What... is that?’
The moment Lee A-un saw that sphere, he felt the illusion that time had stopped.
The black man gently pushed the sphere.
The sphere softly moved forward.
—Interest...
The moment it touched the God from Outer Space.
—Eeeek!!! Gyaaaaaaaaaah!!!!
The God from Outer Space screamed as though in a frenzy.
Kwaaaaaaa!!!
With a scream full of horror, the God from Outer Space shot out thousands of massive tentacles that seemed ready to swallow the world.
It was a fierce attack that shattered space, as though the end of the world had come.
However, the tentacles broke the moment they touched the sphere.
The god’s body that touched the sphere was the same.
No, rather than breaking, it was being erased.
Without any noise whatsoever.
As though it had never existed from the beginning.
Like black ink dissolving in water...
—Gruuuuh...
At last.
The God from Outer Space slowly melted into the air.
—Ahh... this is... O great one...
That was the end.
“....”
Lee A-un blankly stared at the scene.
The being that had been radiating enough terror to destroy the world just moments ago had disappeared like dust. Like a mirage.
It vanished without even putting up resistance that could properly be called resistance.
And as if it had all been a lie, the cursed energy and unpleasant sensation constricting Lee A-un disappeared in an instant.
“...Ah.”
Then, like an audience member regaining their senses after watching a gore film.
The moment Lee A-un suddenly became aware of reality.
“Huh.”
[You have overcome Heaven’s Curse: Outer God’s Brand]
[You have overcome Heaven’s Curse: Outer God’s Sacrifice]
[You have overcome Heaven’s Curse: Outer God’s Vessel]
[You have overcome Heaven’s Curse: Twisted Fate]
[You have overcome Heaven’s Curse: Misfortune]
[You have overcome Heaven’s Curse: Corruption]
[You have overcome Heaven’s Curse: Short Life]
Countless message windows appeared.
And like the protagonists in comics who felt the sensation of removing sandbags.
Flash!
[You have ‘completely’ recovered]
Lee A-un felt an overwhelming sense of liberation.
***
Thud.
The raid ended with Lee A-un, who had been glowing wildly with golden light, collapsing.
“...Only one?”
How disappointing.
“Why was it so bland? In the past, things like that came out ten or twenty at a time.”
Tsk. Tsk.
Let us see the quest reward.
[Emergency Quest - Invasion from Outer Space]
[Defeat all enemies threatening the world!]
[Quest Reward: Differential payment according to achievement]
God from Outer Space. Outer God.
These beings also existed as a concept in Lost Honor.
Considering the similarities between reality and Lost Honor.
There was a high possibility that these Outer Gods existed in reality as well.
That was why I had planned to use Lee A-un as a sacrifice and perform an Outer God summoning ritual.
And it had worked properly.
The Emergency Quest that activated only when an Outer God appeared, ‘Invasion from Outer Space.’
I had needed this.
This was an extremely profitable quest.
Outer God materials were very difficult to obtain.
Was it because Outer Gods were too strong and difficult to capture? Not at all.
Just as I had killed one with a single Void Knight Ultimate Skill a moment ago, it was not difficult for me to capture them.
The reason it was difficult was that the probability of an Outer God appearing was atrocious.
They were beings that appeared only very, very rarely, with a truly minuscule probability.
The fortunate part was that if one caught one, it would always drop Outer God materials.
‘Let us see.’
Just as I was about to check the quest reward.
[Emergency Epic Quest: ‘Save the Republic of Korea from the Crisis of Destruction 3’ Complete!]
“?”
What was that supposed to mean?
I immediately checked the quest window.
[Emergency Epic Quest]
[Save the Republic of Korea from the Crisis of Destruction 3]
[Quest Objective]
[Awaken ‘Lee A-un’ to EX-rank]
“...It says Awaken Lee A-un to EX-rank, though?”
Was it saying he had become EX-rank just because I killed that one Outer God?
“Huh? Why is he doing that?”
Lee A-un, wrapped in light, began floating into the air.
[Would you like to complete the quest and receive the reward?]
[Quest Reward]
[Corridor of Constellations - ‘Possession’ Enhancement]
[Possession Ticket]
[1. Yes] [2. No]
“Hey, Emperor Raising has not even started yet!”
Rainy Lotus
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