Chapter 28: [Arc 1] Chapter 22: The Demon Vs The Primeval Adventurer

Peek-a-boo...

"......And I'm the type who likes being right normally..." - Garami

"T-th-th-then h-he's t-th-there!?" - Gust

He's there alright. Behind the massive doors that led to the throne room sat the King of Ghosts himself. Or should we just call him King Avalar at this point?

I wanted to Identify him, but he's right by the throne, meaning out of the skill's range. Even so, aether oozed outta the kneeling knight king. It was so much that I thought that the first floor was covered in mist when we descended from the second floor. It was so dense that the moles were scared back to their tunnels. 

Ah, a little late, but the throne room's on the first floor. All the other challenges were located on the second. The secret entrance is, of course, on the third floor. We even found other "backdoors" on the second and third floors.

...Then the main entrance packed with Dread Spirits is just a fake? No, rather than that, maybe the Quest had already started by then? You have to act like the spy in the story and sneak into the kingdom(castle)? 

"...Then maybe we should..." - Garami

"You said something? Rather, you said something!?" - Gust

"...Training...for the big city." - Garami (Sulky)

"...Sorry. Just go on." - Gust

I explained how I believed that the King was impossible to defeat through normal means. All the odds are leaning to him after all. Home-field advantage, extra batteries with the hordes of Dread Spirits outside, not to mention he's probably one of the strongest Kings of Ghosts out there. At least, if his tales of heroism are true.

The spy didn't face the king either. Instead, he stole the Sword of Selection, which is pretty much the same as Caliburn in Arthurian myths back on Earth. This time, however, the sword we're stealing is that of the spy himself. Meaning the last piece of the Remnant puzzle.

I've even confirmed its location: right in front of the King, stabbed in what used to be the throne~.

No way. Are you kidding? Isn't this impossible?

And there's no way to mistake it. There's even a magic signature that looks like roots attached to it, making it easy to notice it with [Magic Sight]. What the roots are for? No clue and I don't care. The goal here's to snatch that thing.

See?

"Hey, you got a plan?" - Gust

A plan...finding a plan's more difficult than finding the goal after all...

"...Gust charges in...snaps the sword before the King...notice?" - Garami

"What's up with that half-assed plan!? It's just going to end with me crashing and burning!" - Gust

He has heard that saying? Or rather, that saying exists in this world? 

I read through "Legendary Figures of the Past" again, more precisely, the last chapters... 

This could work..., right? Better make some tests before seeing if I'm right here.

---

The king sat solemnly before the throne. He showed no sign of anger or lust of vengeance as he looked on the sword that once was owned by his nemesis. No, he would not show anger even if that person appeared before him.

He only felt bitterness.

The man known as Ulrit Avalar was too righteous for his own good. If someone was in trouble, he would drop anything but the people he is already helping to assist the newcomer. He hunted monsters, retrieved hidden medical herbs, anything in case someone was in dire need of it. 

To fulfill his wish of helping people, Avalar had even created his own organization based on the Merchant Union that consists of many smaller Merchant Guilds. The people in this organization would fulfill requests for people while training themselves to become stronger to face potential stronger threats towards humanity. This organization would later become the Adventurers Union.

Avalar himself became known as the "Primeval Adventurer", and people flocked to him, either out of admiration, or less honorable reasons. So many that they had to turn Avalar's home village into a town. Then a city. Then, again, to a whole kingdom.

However, while the Adventurers Union's increasing popularity was accepted by many countries, there were not so many that welcomed the Avalar kingdom.

One of these countries sent a spy into the castle guard that obtained enough information and connections in the kingdom to initiate a coup d'etat in the form of a rebellion. The incident ended with the first Avalar castle being burned to the ground, with the king alongside it.

The massive grief from being betrayed by his subjects turned the king into a King of Ghosts. If the flames had not been magically enhanced to burn even the soul, then he could have ended up as a type of Wraith. Then how about a Skeleton or a Zombie? Not possible. The flames burned the corpse to ashes.

The King of Ghosts did not have a lair, as it did not need rest or food, an ability it wanted to have while alive, but it did stay around the monumental castle the citizens had created to honor king Avalar. The King did not consider the castle as its own, but the goodwill of the people towards king Avalar warmed its non-existent heart.

One day, however, that castle was stolen. The King could not believe its own eyes. Suddenly it stood there, then the next, it was gone. 

The culprits were easy to figure out, as they were there at the scene of the crime. A man dressed in black military clothes commanded metallic golems, and a large, snake-like water dragon. The King tried to stop them, but the two parties escaped too fast.

The King of Ghosts then started to hunt down those two, but the hunt gave no results for 17 years. Turning into a Dread Spirit had eliminated all of its skills after all. Then, a small stroke of luck came for the King when it searched a certain Flying Continent.

"Yes, with my brains, even the biggest and complex mystery is solved in less than a minute!" - Gust (bragging)

A group of ravens was talking loudly to each other with [Telepathy]. The King, half-crazed due to desperation, kidnapped the raven that had told its friends of its incredible deduction abilities. The King tried to make sure that the raven came to no harm, protecting it from the Dread Spirit with a special cloth on the cage it had found during its search for the two criminals.

The assignment turned out too difficult for even the brilliant raven. The King, however, did not blame the bird. After all, the King lacked any means to converse with the bird, except for the written language the King knew of, which was several centuries old by now. Not to mention that the King had never kept a bird, nor did he know how to keep one either. Keeping the raven in its cage and feeding it was all the King could do for it.

Three years later after kidnapping the bird, and a solid clue appeared. A Dungeon had been discovered in the Velantas region on the same continent as the Avalar Kingdom was one. The King could not believe its goal was so close, but he hurried to the Invidia continent.

As a King of Ghosts, it could appear wherever there was a Dread Spirit, but the Dungeon was strange. It somehow blocked the King's transportation ability, as if rejecting any outside forces. Despite the strangeness and novelty of the situation, the King was able to breach the Dungeon due to the rejecting force weakened for some reason. 

After entering the Dungeon, the King was caught up in a cave-in, most likely due to a conflict between a snake monster and a group of cockroach-type monsters. A single slash enhanced with the power of the Dread Spirits was enough to blow away the collapsing rocks.

The raven that was with the King got caught up in the attack, so the King used most of his time to look after the raven. Only after seeing the raven and sound, welcoming a spider-like creature into a set of tunnels, made the King continue the hunt. There were some doubts in the King's mind, such as how the spider-like creature could go into the mist made of Dread Spirits, but they seemed alright. The King also knew that they would be better if the King did not appear before them.

After that, the King finally found what it was looking for. The memorial castle. It was lodged into the Dungeon for some reason, with more Dread Spirits flocking outside it than one could count.

The King could easily enter the castle grounds, even if it looked like the Dread Spirits were prevented from doing the same. The King then noticed a disturbance in the throne room. 

The King was shocked. In the back of the room stood a sword, stuck into the remains of what should be the throne. Several aether circuits were attached to the sword and the rest of the Dungeon.

The King remembered something from long ago. Dungeons were constructs that gained their traits from the Dungeon Core used to form it, along with the traits of the owner of the Dungeon, and the neighboring area around the Dungeon itself. 

'Has this Dungeon obtained the trait of this castle?' That was the King's first thought, but a closer look allowed him to get a better understanding of the situation. The Dungeon had forcefully been added the trait of the sword stabbed into the throne. The sword of the rat that had caused the rebellion in the Avalar kingdom. The sword of the rebel.

'Then, the Dungeon has obtained the trait of rebellion?' The idea was not too farfetched. To add additional traits to the Dungeon was something done even when the King was 'alive', but the god Chaos had always punished those who tried to cheat that way.

Wait, if the Dungeon is rebelling, does that also mean it is not under the gods' jurisdiction?

That was a scary thought. A single Dungeon could spell the end of a whole country if it grew too large and therefore needed to be supervised by the god of Chaos and its followers. What would happen if the Dungeon was free from those shackles?

Just when the King was thinking that a giant creature appeared before it. It was a black spider, big enough to cover the whole throne room. It looked like an oversized spider, but its face was wrapped to look like a human with eight, black eyes.

"*** **** **" - Spider

The massive creature spoke something, but the language was so bizarre, something so far from anything on Terra Sol, that the King could not comprehend it at all.

Before the King could attack the monstrosity, black spiderlings, not bigger than one could see them as black spots on the wall, captured the King with their threads. The King could do nothing but submit to the spider's will, forcing him to stay in the throne room until someone challenged him for the sword there.

As the King wondered about his current situation, a change suddenly happened. A faint burned smell reached the King. At the same time, the bindings that hold him weakened. His body could move, but it was not him that moved it. The body ran outside to see where the smell came from.

After exiting the throne room, the King was met by the sight of the castle burning. And boy did it burn. It was as if someone had poured oil over the place. Was it some kind of fire magic again? The King's nonexisting stomach started to hurt from the trauma. 

Then the King recognized a certain smell from the inferno. Rum, vodka, gin, many different types of alcohol. The culprit must have used that instead of oil to get the stone castle so flammable.

It was like the tragedy from so many years ago. The King's body moved on its own to extinguish the fire, while the King's mind wondered who was responsible for this.

Whoever they are, they sure are lucky that my body is controlled by someone else now, thought the King, as he witnessed his body's futile attempt to extinguish the fire. I did always have a weakness against fire-types...

---

Garami's PoV:

Burn, burn, burn it all!! Mwa-hahahaha!

I'm so glad I got rid of that fire weakness! Or else this barbeque party would have killed me already! 

After finding more burnable goods (booze) in the different kitchens around the castle, I drenched the whole place, making it stink worse than the lowest of the low-grade bars there is. Not to mention more burnable than the SNS for a trash-game company.

I even threw a torch down to the Dread Spirits outside the castle. The result: running and burning Spirits. Guess any type of energy is bad for those guys. Or was it due to me using Ignite, the Fire attribute spell of [Magic Ability]?

Either way, this proves that the King of Ghosts can't use the Dread Spirits in the castle if I set it alight. They'll go up in flames. So much for that potential second form of the boss. 

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As for Gust, I made him wait with the moles in the tunnels. I don't want him to turn into fried chicken, er, raven.

After igniting the booze spill with Ignite, I quickly took position above the doors to the throne room, holding myself to the wall through the strings from my fingers.

It took some while, which felt even longer since I had to endure the smoke rising from the fire, but his majesty caught on to what was going on in the castle.

The King rushed outta the throne room like a storm. During that moment, I increased the length of the threads and successfully took a reverse somersault into the inner sanctum.

The door closed the moment I landed. Probably a security measure to prevent someone from sneaking in while the King's on duty somewhere else. Something I would have thought of, therefore this little stunt. 

I turned around to get a better look at the room. It's as big as an auditorium, with pillars on rows from the entrance to where the throne the sword is. Wasting no time, I ran up to the sword. I mean, who would put traps in the throne room... that's a good idea. Better be more careful.

So, after running with caution, I reached the sword in the throne... this seriously feels Arthurian-ish. The sword was shabby, even broken at some points. Except for the serious need of seeing a blacksmith, the sword looked like a one-handed sword you could find everywhere, with some additional ornaments. Whoever owned it must have had bad taste.

Heave... and... ho!!

*...No result. It is as if pulling a mountain.*

Stupid inner game monologs aside, this thing's f*cking stuck! I'm even using threads and [Thread Control] when I pulled it. 

Is it that? The thing where you have to crush the base to get the sword? I tried to smash it with  [Impact Thread], weaken it with [Aura of Darkness], even carving it loose with the Steel Swords, but nothing worked. 

Did my stinginess for brute force come back to bite me? 

*Crash!*

It's biting, alright. And today's catch is a smoked King of Ghosts!

---

The King looked furious, and a little scorched, when he saw me trying to pull out the sword. Ehm, this is not what it looks like?

He didn't buy that. Instead, the King came lunging towards me, greatsword in hand, ready to cut me down. I planned to run, but then I got a better idea. 

I waited for the King to come closer, and right when he raised his sword, I used [Blink] to get away in the split-second before it connected. Remembering that this move wouldn't work on the knight captain if he was serious, I made an additional jump after the skill ended. 

I looked back after landing and saw the King coming chasing after me. And that the sword had been knocked loose, due to the King smashing the ground with that slash. I was worried that he might straight out cut the sword along with the ground... hey, why isn't the ground cut open instead of smashed? It is a sword, even if it looks like a blunt weapon.

I threw some sticky threads and used the Darkness magic, Black Fog, to distract the King while I Identified him.

Ah, it showed. I only half-believed it would. The parts where it's got no levels and stats are the same as with the general and the other Living Spirits, but its classes are present too... even if they're greyed out. And no skills at all... that's lucky for me.

And its race is "Wild Hunt Lord"? Not "King of Ghosts"? Isn't there someone that has managed to Identify one of these before? They must have died before releasing the information... not good.

And the break's over! The King used a circle slash to throw off the fog and threads, then started to go after me again. 

I dodged by jumping backward to escape his greatsword. His swordsmanship is first-class, despite the lack of skills. But he's only using large swings, making it easy to notice flaws in his defense. After the King did a large swing, I dived into his abdomen by using [Blink] whose cooldown-time had ended, for then giving the King a slash of my own.

*Clang!*

Hard! He's wearing armor, I know that, but let me at least be mad at him for that. I slashed his back to get some more damage in, but the King ignored the attack and backed towards me for a reversed bodyslam. 

Seeing the opportunity, I quickly crouched down and tripped the King, for then webbing him as he fell to the ground. He broke loose in less than five seconds. Seriously?

Our game of cat and mouse continued for some while, with me being able to land a few hits on the King. The unfair difference in that my attacks barely scratch him, while I'll be insta-killed by his, has slowly driven me to a bad position.

I need SP to dodge his attacks, create threads, and use [Blink]. MP is being used on [Aura of Darkness], some Darkness spells when I got the chance, and even the Evil Eye, since it slows him down somewhat. Guess he has some hidden status values? Or do the Eye work on those "outside the System"?

The King, however, seems to have an unlimited amount of energy of any kind. The aether that makes up the King should go down as we keep this going, but I can't even imagine when he's gonna go empty. 

I, on the other hand, am soon out of gas. I even threw a few of the weaker poisons at the King, but those didn't work at all~. Snatching the now free sword and run away with the Quest reward would be ideal, but the King keeps on getting in the way! If only [Heresy Modification] worked on this guy like the mob Spirits...

Slashes at his side, wrists, back of the knees, neck, the King just tanks them all without caring. Dark Grasp can't hold him, he rips off the threads, poison's not effective, and even enhancing my attacks with the Mana Burst skill can't penetrate his defense. 

I've been forced to use the Parry Art of the skill with the same name several times already due to the King catching up to me before [Blink]'s cooldown time ended. [Guard]'s Arts would be broken in one blow. 

I moved behind him to strike his back-gwagh!!

*Bang!*

*Cough, cough*, damn, he got me. I'm even coughing up blood here...

Who calls themselves a knight but does a roundhouse kick!? My HP reached 0 there for a sec! Hadn't it been for [Battle Survivor], I would have died there! I got too conceited with all the successful sneak attacks. Damn...

The King decided to end this with a shoulder charge. I used a rubber thread to jump up the wall for a quick escape, making the King crash into the wall. Ugh, my stomach hurts... You know I'm technically a woman?

While the King was occupied by being stuck in the wall, I looked at my skills for some way to stop him while throwing a thread towards the sword... that's it!!

Before retrieval thread could reach the sword, the King had already gotten out of the wall and threw his greatsword at the thread to cut it. Thanks for throwing your weapon away!

By the time the King turned his attention to me again, my next attack was already ready to go. From my Storage, I had retrieved two large barrels with the alcohol that I didn't use as a gasoline replacement. Using [Thread Control], I threw the first barrel at the King with an incredible speed thanks to [Throwing]. [Whipsmanship] and [Threadsmanship] may also have helped.

The King took the barrels head-on like with the rest of the attacks, but this time, the blow was too much for him, making him fall on his back. Then let's keep them going~.

Three more barrels were thrown from the Storage, making the King smell like a rum factory. The King looked pissed off, even with the helmet, and threw his scabbard at me. I jumped off the wall and dodged the blow. While in-air, I turned my body around and aimed at the King with a magic spell ready. 

"Ignite!" - Garami

The fire-starting spell hit the alcohol-drenched King, setting him on fire before I had reached to land. Man, that's some hot flames. 

The King let out a soundless scream while he was scorched...hmm? Why did I feel like he was laughing a moment there?

Whatever it was, the King fell a few moments after being set on fire. The "body" then turned into black smoke, kinda like how the Dread Spirits disappear after you kill them.

Thank god. All of my Life Stats are dangerously close to zero. There was almost no time for potions even. Except when the King crashed into the wall, but I was busy preparing the booze barrels, so...

Oooh!! As expected of his majesty! But, "Hero Killer"? "True Chaos"? Not to forget that Giant Killer advanced... I was this close to ending up in limbo again, wasn't I?

The Legacy Quest? Kinda predicted something like that. Gust mentioned something like that called the "Ancient Dragon Slayer" Quest once. Never wanna face something like that. Seems the reward can be picked up whenever you want instead of popping up like the rest. Weird.

Now then, I gotta scram this grill party-!

...Eh? Wait, what was that? Is this, you know, one of those, Champion-related stuff?

N-n-no matter, first the Quest. The Quest!

I hurriedly picked up the sword that lay on the remains of the throne.

Finally! [Sunlight Resistance] is mine! I was about to pick up the Skill Scroll that just appeared when I noticed the black piece of cloth underneath it started to move around on its own. Is this some living cloth? I'm not wearing it.

As I was about to check if the cloth could go into the Storage, with the real reason being to see if it was alive or not, the cloth assaulted the Remnant sword in my hands! I dropped the sword from the fright, allowing the cloth to wrap itself around it before it stormed into the opening I had made to my Storage. Hey, get outta there!

I checked the Storage contents and saw that all the 6 other Remnants had disappeared and replaced with something called "Material of Possibilities". I used [Identification] on it (you can still use it even if it's stored in [Spatial Storage]), but I only saw the description calling it a "material that can realize dreams". Do I need to let a blacksmith look at it? Or a weaver, since it's cloth? Wait, isn't it also the Remnant parts (metal armor)?

Yeah, this isn't something an amateur should decide. Better keep it sealed. Time to get...huh? The King's sword... it's still there? I looked over where the King perished and saw only burn marks... plus the scabbard that he had thrown away. Are those drop items?

They don't look cursed... but [Identification] won't tell me anything except their names and item ranks. The King had classes such as Sword Saint and Heavenly Knight, so must I be the same to even see their information? They're both Go-ranked (Godly). Serious? By the way, the sword's called Deathcaliber, while the scabbard is the Sheath of Deathcaliber...

Well, if no one's gonna have them, then I'll take them! Yahoo!

Description:

The [Battle Survivor] skill is a 2nd-tier skill, evolved from the [Battle Continuation] skill. 

Not only does it gives more protection than [Battle Continuation] at the same skill level, it also protects the skill user from death once per day. It also recovers the skill user's HP according to the skill level.

However, fatal wounds such as losing your head, die from blood loss, having once whole body disintegrated, or die from old age will not be prevented by this skill.

Smaller damage such as broken bones or cuts will be healed.

Garami's comment: So glad I evolved this one!! It's a lifesaver!

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