Chapter 121

“Hurry! Please save me! Please? Mr. Reincarnator!”

Modres pushed away the clinging Peter.

Peter fell with a thud.

“Why, why are you doing this, Mr. Reincarnator? Please?”

That thing is a fake.

Even if he killed that thing and reached the 99th floor, he would just return to the 1st floor.

This place was a ‘Dungeon’ designed to be that way.

Modres had never felt this way before.

The experience of a Demon King, the master of a Dungeon, and a human, who was supposed to Raid it, having their roles reversed. It was a truly strange feeling, like being hunted by one’s prey.

Modres brushed off his tense shoulders.

And he made a decision.

His initial plan to monopolize Ian’s Legacy was scrapped.

“I Summon the Almighty Demon God to this space, please respond to my call…”

The moment the Master arrives here, that bastard will also be trapped…

“……”

Modres, who had been chanting the spell, tilted his head.

He couldn’t feel the phenomenon that should have appeared.

The space should have been splitting vertically, but there wasn’t the slightest tremor.

Suddenly, Modres’s gaze fell upon Peter.

The guy was grinning.

“How do you like it? The Dungeon I made.”

A strange voice flowed from Peter’s mouth.

It was Choi Gi-woong.

“Mental Magic, I see.”

“Correct.”

Everything Modres was seeing right now was an illusion.

An illusion unfolding within his own mind.

The Dungeon itself was designed that way.

From the very moment he had taken a step into the Dungeon.

Even then, Modres remained composed.

“You’re going to die anyway.”

“Oh, really?”

“Once a month. I report to him. By now, he must have noticed my disappearance.”

The Master will personally descend upon this land.

A mere Dungeon like this is something he can destroy with ease.

What will that face look like then?

He was looking forward to it.

But the next moment, Choi Gi-woong said something strange.

“I think that’ll take about two thousand more years.”

“…What?”

Modres tilted his head.

“It’s because I’ve cast a ton of Mental Magic. Has it been about 20 seconds so far?”

A few seconds? He almost asked back but held it in.

The month he had spent climbing to the 99th floor.

Was in reality, just…

A groan escaped him involuntarily.

Modres glared at Choi Gi-woong.

He didn’t seem to be lying.

Modres’s eyes darted around frantically.

Choi Gi-woong grinned.

“Go on, try your best. Who knows? Maybe if you Raid it a few more times, you’ll be able to get out?”

Those were his last words.

Choi Gi-woong’s body crumbled away.

“W-Wait a minute…”

-1st Floor Cleared!

-Remaining Floors: 99!

-Good luck!

And so, it began again.

Fwoosh!

“That guy over there. When do you think he’ll give up?”

Peter asked with a queasy look on his face.

His eyes, which had been on the Crystal Orb, creaked toward me.

He looked at me as if I were some terrifying Demon King.

“People wouldn’t believe it even if I told them. How could someone who does something like this be Ian’s Reincarnator…”

I smacked the back of his head.

Peter fell silent.

Even then, my gaze was still examining the traces Ian had left behind.

Among the many books Ian had left, this one was about the System.

-A being called Lu in this world, the System in your world, and the law of causality in other worlds. It is fighting with the being called the Demon God, Demon King, or Master. Probably since before the concept of time even existed. While roaming this dimension and that dimension.

-That’s right. Things like gods, or almighty beings. Or the great and merciful Lu.

There’s no such thing.

There’s only the battle between two transcendent beings left with nothing but greed.

-And we are the pawns in that battle. Lord Azadun would be furious if he heard this, but what can you do? This is the truth.

Shocking contents poured out one after another.

I had read this about ten times now, so I was this calm; the first time, I was so surprised that I just stared blankly at Casilla.

If I said something like this to Casilla, she would surely be appalled, calling it blasphemous.

Right. Let’s calm down.

The relationship between the System and the Demon King, or that we are pawns.

There’s no need for anyone else to know such tremendous secrets of the world, right?

-Even so, the things I have to do don’t change. They messed with me, and they tried to kill me, so I’m just paying them back in kind.

That’s right. That’s all it is.

Knowing Ian’s personality, even if it had been Lu, the System, that had messed with him instead of the Demon King, he’s the type of guy who would have devised a way to smash it.

Of course, you can’t fool the Soul. I’m the same.

I have enough of a sense of responsibility to eliminate the hordes of Monsters invading my world.

I flipped through the pages.

With every flip, there was always at least one shocking message included.

And soon, I discovered the most shocking information of all.

“Huh.”

The Demon King of Demon Kings.

The being they call Master.

Ian was calling this being Chaos.

And I realized why Ian had prepared so diligently, and why he had still failed.

Chaos’s estimated Level.

Approximately 1,000.

My breath caught in my throat.

A thousand?

A thousand, you say?

What was my current Level again?

I opened the Status Window again.

The confidence that had been soaring just a moment ago was splendidly crushed.

This was, well, so overwhelming that I had no idea what to do.

I knew I had to raise my Level.

But how?

Should I hunt Demon Kings?

All of them, including the Sealed ones?

That was the only thing I could think of right now.

Even in Ian’s Legacy, there wasn’t a single word about how to kill Chaos.

Right.

I get it now, just how incredible my enemies are.

No, I already knew, but now it feels truly real.

I closed the book and stood up.

I approached the Crystal Orb that constituted the Dungeon.

Modres’s form was clearly visible.

He was completely freaking out.

-Uwaaaaaaaah! Get lost, all of you!

The guy had returned to the 1st floor again.

“How many attempts is this now?”

“It must be around three hundred times.”

Peter, who had been counting, answered wryly.

“That’s not much.”

Demon Kings have fundamentally lived for thousands of years.

Compared to that, Raiding a Dungeon merely three hundred times isn’t a very long time in the grand scheme of things.

But the important point is this.

The fact that one must wander a Dungeon from which they can never escape creates a sense of terror.

Even for a being who has lived for ages, their Ego is bound to crumble before that.

In the meantime, Modres was once again killing the Peter inside the Dungeon.

I want to praise his tenacity, at least. But at this rate, it’s meaningless whether he Raids it ten thousand times or a hundred thousand times.

“Tell me when it reaches two thousand.”

“Am I supposed to keep watching?”

“Or do you want to go in with him?”

“No, sir. I’d like to die a peaceful death. I will watch diligently. He just Raided it one more time.”

“Right, right.”

I turned my attention back to Ian’s arrangements.

This time, to Saint Ajadun’s diary.

By the time I finish reading all of this, it feels like we might be able to have a conversation.

Around the time dawn was slowly breaking.

I told Casilla I would follow her soon and sent her outside.

Then, around the time the sun was high in the sky.

“It’s the two-thousandth time.”

Peter, who had been staring at the Crystal Orb until his eyes turned bloodshot, approached me.

“Um, but his condition doesn’t look good.”

“It shouldn’t look good. He’s a Demon King.”

“That’s not what I mean…”

Peter scratched the back of his head.

“He was asking to be killed.”

Thud.

I closed the diary. I slowly approached the Crystal Orb.

It was quite a sight.

Modres, trapped in the Dungeon, was tearing at his hair.

Right.

This is just about perfectly ripe.

I infused Mana into the Crystal Orb.

My consciousness was sucked into it, like a wet cotton ball going limp.

Fwoosh!

I blinked once, and the scenery changed.

Into the Dungeon within my consciousness.

-Entering the Dungeon!

-A master key is provided!

-You can adjust the Dungeon’s difficulty!

-You can reconfigure the Dungeon!

As I brushed away the flood of messages, I saw him.

Modres.

Modres. Rank 3. Level 500.

He looked like such a wreck it was hard to believe he was a fearsome Demon King.

Modres lifted his drooping head.

His pupils trembled upon discovering me.

A being I cannot defeat on my own is standing before me.

He didn’t charge at me. He knows it would be meaningless.

Inside this Dungeon created by Ian, I am no different from a god.

Instead, the guy haltingly opened his mouth.

“…Ian.”

He looks at me as if I’m his mortal enemy, though I’ve never seen him before.

No, that’s not right. Ian must have seen this guy, so he is an enemy.

I suddenly became curious about the details of Ian’s life.

Once I reach Level 450, I too will be free from my limited lifespan.

I’ll have a chance to look into it in detail through a Past Life Lucid Dream.

To do that…

As I was thinking, the guy spoke to me.

“How… much time has passed?”

“Who knows. Does it matter? You’ll be wandering inside here for eternity from now on.”

Unless I let him go, the guy has no options.

Not even the option of death.

Chaos?

His Ego would collapse faster than Chaos could descend into this dimension.

He knows it, and I know it.

That’s what’s driving him mad.

And that’s not even the end of it.

“The difficulty has been too easy until now, right? I’m thinking of making it a little harder.”

“……”

“How about it.”

The guy took a deep breath.

Modres, who had collapsed onto the floor, licked his lips with his tongue.

His epithet is the Demon of Temptation.

It means he’s good with his tongue. When talking to a guy like this, you have to crush him decisively from the start.

“What is it you want? Tell me.”

That’s right.

That’s the line I was waiting for.

“Die peacefully at my hands.”

The guy let out a groan.

It must have been what he expected.

He’s clearly contemplating. At times like this, you have to tighten the screws.

I turned my back.

That alone made the guy shoot up as if having a seizure.

“Wait.”

Modres urgently grabbed me.

“If I die, he will descend upon this land. He definitely will. He is not one to overlook such matters.”

The guy’s words quickened.

“You won’t be able to handle it. I’ll give you information. I’ll pledge my loyalty to you if you want. Yes, if you don’t believe me, I’ll imprint it on my Soul. You would know, wouldn’t you? That that Oath can never be broken…”

The guy, who had been spouting gibberish I couldn’t understand, suddenly met my eyes.

He flinched.

He realized it. That no matter what he said, it wouldn’t work on me in the slightest.

The guy exhaled.

“Ha. Ha. How can this be so absurd.”

It’s understandable.

To think he would die just by stepping into a Dungeon, without even being able to bring out his main body.

To think that he, who should be called a Boss Monster among Boss Monsters, would die so absurdly.

How futile must it feel.

But that is his fate.

And it is also the fate of the Demon Kings to come.

The guy’s shoulders slumped. It was a sign of permission, that he wouldn’t resist, that I could kill him.

Well, not that resisting would mean anything as long as he’s trapped in the Dungeon.

That was his end.

Crrrack-!

I plunged Durandal into his solar plexus.

He didn’t resist. No, he couldn’t.

The moment he showed any strange signs, he would re-enter the cycle of hell.

Durandal, having drunk its fill of a Demon King’s blood, a Rank 3 at that, vibrated.

It seems to be in a good mood.

The same went for me.

This was the reason I intended to kill him in the first place.

-Level Up!

-Level Up!

-Level Up!

.

.

.

I closed my eyes, watching the endlessly appearing messages.

It was the moment I succeeded in breaking down one of the walls blocking my path.

Kwaaang!

And the moment I reached the true EX-Rank.