Chapter 169: I am the Digger – 1

”What the hell is that!”

“It’s raining golem fragments…..!”

“A drill! So cool!”

Yu IlHan’s new weapon shocked not only the golem, but the others as well. He actually used the bone ammo as a screw? And equipped an ‘electronic’ driver?

Above all, he was grinding that giant golem real-time!

[Kuwaaaaak!]

“Uoooooh!”

[So fast! He’s already dug 5 meters already!?] (Liera)

[Frustrating…… so frustrating!] (Erta)

Meanwhile, Yu IlHan had ended up learning a new skill. He had entered a realm he hadn’t in his one thousand years of solitude.

[You have acquired the skill, Excavation. All abilities related to excavation rises as the skill level rises, and the quality of the items excavated becomes higher as well.]

Never did he imagine there would come a day he’d learn such a skill!

“There really is no end to the path of labour.”

[I’m actually starting to be scared now that he may try to master all possible paths of manual labour……] (Liera)

Liera retorted to Yu IlHan’s honest remark. Yu IlHan wanted to retort to her about what she saw him as, but he wasn’t one to talk, since he was literally grinding a golem, so he held back.

[The skill, Excavation, has become level 2.]

[The skill, Excavation, has become level 3.]

[The skill, Excavation……]

[The skill…….]

The more he dug into the golem’s body, and the more the drill spun and scattered the metal fragments around as the Excavation skill level rose. No matter how skilled Yu IlHan was in labour, it was abnormal for a skill to rise so rapidly from level 1.

However, the ‘target’ of excavation right now, in terms of the excavation realm, could be considered to be the final boss, a golem made of archaic alloy metal! It was no wonder the proficiency increase was incomparable to swinging pickaxes to dig iron ore!

[The skill, Excavation, has become level 15.]

Originally, the skill had to rise even faster, but since the scattered fragments that comprised the golem’s body was still controlled by the golem, Yu IlHan’s excavation was in fact, actually not successful at all.

Meaning, Yu IlHan was actually piling skill proficiency while trying and failing! It could be seen how amazing and horrifying of an opponent this golem was.

[Guwooooooooh!]

While Yu IlHan was enjoying a two-birds-with-one-stone time of training skills and training skills, the golem felt a sense of crisis from its body being ground apart. Even when it tried to regenerate its body by picking the fragments back up, the puny humans beneath its feet was desperately preventing that, so it couldn’t do so!

So, it ended up choosing the extreme choice. The enormous amount of records and mana it had piled up over a long period of time on this stone mountain! – utilizing all of that, it had implemented a trump card attack that should have been impossible for it normally!

“Huh?”

Since Yu IlHan was focusing on drilling through the golem’s body, the first one to notice the change was Na YuNa.

“The ruins is emitting some strange light!”

“Why would the ruins glow….. everyone back off!”

Kang MIRae shouted after her. After that, the entrance exploded with a ‘boom!’ and the white metals composing the corridor inside all shot up into the air! Na YuNa shouted with shiny eyes as soon as she saw that!

“It’s a fusion!”

“Stop! Stop that!”

Shouted Kang MIrae while shooting a spear of lightning. a strong lightning, that was way above just 3rd class magic, struck on a portion of the white lumps of metal, but the mysterious metal didn’t seem to be damaged at all.

“Haaap!”

The next batter was Yumir. As he had seen Kang MiRae’s failure just now, he tried to blow them far away instead of destroying them, but the metal actually completely devoured the windstorm he had made. This was dragon’s magic, albeit 3rd class, we’re talking about!

“*Cries*, dad!”

When he failed, he looked for his dad! Fortunately, at that time, Yu IlHan had also sensed the change in the stone mountain. Right now, only the metals making up the ruins were reacting, but in Yu IlHan’s eyes, this golem’s deeds wouldn’t stop there.

From the minute vibrations on the ground, or the suspicious movement of mana, he was quite sure. In the worst case scenario, the entire stone mountain may as well disintegrate and fuse into the golem’s body!

“Ugh, I can’t help it…..!”

Even while grumbling that he was about to be robbed of everything when he had just come here to learn magic engineering, he took out the next set of cards he had.

While he himself was still holding onto the Death Driver, he called out something using the remote collection function of his inventory, onto the top of the golem’s shoulders, which was……

“Death Ballista Quartet!”

[The names are quite generic.] (Liera)

[But do you really have to shout like that every time you take something out?] 1

[Do you not know, Erta, it’s where his dreams lie in.] (Spiera)

Surrounding the massive hole Yu IlHan had made while digging, four huge ballistas appeared in the east, west, south, and north directions. They were loaded with cartridges containing a maximum of 50 loadable sharp blades.

Actually, from its appearance alone, it didn’t look that much different to the installation-type ballista he had made before. 2, but he refused comparisons with those as this ‘did not need human hands to operate’.

“Hup! Eat some bone spears you alien monster!”

Yu IlHan let go of the drill for a moment, and took out 4 3rd class magic stones from his inventory and threw them fast. When the four magic stones emitted bright light in the air, the ballistas, now supplied with mana for activation, all started firing.

They first stuck themselves on the ground and adjusted their trajectory with squeaking sounds, before aiming at the metal fragments that tried to fuse to the golem body.

The magic gunpowder and the Giant’s Rubber Band he had made a lot of, was used in those ballistas, so they had incomparable destructive power from before, and they were starting to smash into pieces, the white metals that tried to regenerate the golem!

[Critical Hit!]

“What the hell is it now!”

“That looks painful.”

“Mr. Yu IlHan. Did you really not learn any magic engineering…..?”

“We don’t have any time to speak! Your Highness, the entire stone mountain is trembling!”

[Kuguguoooooooouuuuuuuh!]

The golem also noticed what was happening on its shoulders. The metals it called out to recover its body was exploding and raining down!

However, just that alone wasn’t enough to extinguish its will. The mana in this area was already resonating with it. Accepting the will to become stronger and sturdier in order to defeat the invaders, the mana was giving the land for it to use.

[Kuoooooh!]

If it was impossible top-down, then it will just start from the bottom! The lands that the people were setting foot on, arose as if it had a will of its own, and fused into the golem’s body. Naturally, earthquakes occurred, and holes appeared everywhere, and the people on the ground had to focus on saving themselves first rather than battle.

At this moment, this golem was the ruler of the area!

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[You’re going to die trying to learn magic engineering!] (Liera)

[Ah, we’re doomed. The ruins completely collapsed.!] (Erta)

“It’s alright. it will be fine if we do something about the golem!”

[Splendid, Yu IlHan. That’s the spirit!] (Spiera)

[In my eyes, he just seems hopelessly optimistic, though!?] (Erta)

Yu IlHan gritted his teeth, and put more strength into gripping the Death Driver. In any case, Yu IlHan was digging deeper into its body. If he drilled all the way to the bottom, then no matter how it tried to reinforce itself, it would fail to move!

“The ruins completely collapsed!”

“The collapsed ruins is all fusing with the golem!”

Regardless of whether the grounds were collapsing, or the fact that the body of the golem was getting larger as time passed, Yu IlHan only focused on drilling through the golem. He poured as much mana he as he had, and focused on the drill and on himself.

Labour was something that would rapidly increase in efficiency the moment the body and soul looked towards one direction! Like how Yu IlHan became one with the spear once before, and one with the sword, he became one with the drill and kept digging through the golem!

[The skill, Excavation, has become level 30. Efficiency related to all excavation increases, and you’re now able to excavate magic metals that cannot be excavated by normal means.]

That was the moment of miracle.

[Guhuk, Guwoooooaaaaah!]

The white metal fragments, that still moved after being drilled by Yu IlHan, under the golem’s control, all stopped moving!

Yes. Becoming able to excavate magic metals, meant that the magic metals excavated by Yu IlHan were no longer under the golem’s control. Of course, he had to spend a certain amount of mana in order to possess the magic metal, but right now, that was hardly a burden!

[The skill, Excavation, has become level 31.]

[The skill, Excavation, has become level 32.]

[The skill, Excavation,…….]

[The skill……]

When the possession of the magic metals he couldn’t acquire until now, all came over to Yu IlHan, the Excavation skill started rising rapidly again.

However, Yu IlHan ignored all the levelup notices on his retina, and did what he had to do now – which was, putting all the stationary magic metals into his inventory. Before the golem started doing anything else with it!

“Huh.”

“Somehow it feels like the golem’s pressure is being reduced….. is it just me?”

Nope.

Well, the golem’s body was increasing faster than Yu IlHan could dig, but that was all just boulders making up the stone mountain. The core power behind the golem, the magic metal, was entering Yu IlHan’s inventory real-time!

[Guwoh, Guwoooooooooh!]

The golem roared as if to say that it was unacceptable to be excavated by a human while alive. At that moment, sharp spikes protrude out from the wall of the hole that Yu IlHan had dug through with the Death Driver and the bone screw!

“Kergh!?”

[Yu IlHan!] (Erta)

[It can change the form inside its body as well!?] (Liera)

Shouted Erta and Liera in shock. Yu IlHan avoided injury as he had called out Aegis as soon as he sensed a change in mana, but the golem focused on shape shifting its insides, and pulled out tens, hundreds, thousands of spikes!

Not only that, slowly, very slowly, but surely, the hole Yu IlHan had dug was shrinking as well. Since Yu IlHan had put all the pieces of metal making up the body into his inventory, this wasn’t regeneration. It was just compressing the body like mad while making up the outer parts with just boulders!

Yu IlHan did not let go of the Death Driver even after confirming that the hole was shrinking, but he couldn’t help but sweat cold sweat as hundreds of metal spikes hit Aegis.

“I think I saw a similar scene in Saw……!”

[Kyaaaak! Don’t mention such a scary movie!] (Liera)3

No matter how good the defense was on Aegis, he couldn’t guarantee that the could hold out forever. Yu IlHan checked while blocking the spikes that appeared from below him.

“How much further do I need to dig until I reach the ground?”

[You are almost all the way through the magic metal parts. No matter how it tries to form its body using boulders from the mountain, in the end, the reason it can move its body was because it is made of magic metals, so if you can sever that, you can kill it. The problem is that……] (Erta)

[Is that we’ll get swallowed up before that happens. Yu IlHan, we need to escape this place first.] (Spiera)

“No.”

Yu IlHan interjected Spiera.

“There’s no solution if we attack from the outside. We need to finish it from the inside. So…… Let’s use the final card.”

He sighed a little. Had he mastered excavation, he wouldn’t have needed to undertake such risks!

Yu IlHan boldly put away the Death Driver into his inventory. The golem roared in victory after noticing that the drill had stopped, but Yu IlHan hadn’t died yet!

He covered his entire body with Aegis, and took a deep breath.

“I really didn’t want to use this.”

[Uuuh, that sounds very suspicious.] (Liera)

[Yu IlHan, no matter how high your fire attribute resistance is, that’s just….] (Erta)

‘It’s alright. Probably.”

The most important thing started now. While the bone screw was still holding out inside the golem! Yu IlHan’s eyes glistened mysteriously.

Even now, the inside of the golem’s body was shrinking little by little. If the bone screw was ejected, then it would immediately try to fill the gap.Yu IlHan planned to plant a bomb before that gap was filled – using the swap technique he had practiced so much. Collecting and releasing at the same time!

“Fuu.”

If he didn’t do it precisely, then Yu IlHan’s life would be in danger as well. Although he had fire attribute resistance, he had no explosion resistance. So he had to prevent himself from being hit by the explosion no matter what.

He stared at the bone screw, and at one moment, he blinked. Immediately after that, the bone screw disappeared, and the golem shrunk that part and filled the gap. It really was a blink of an eye – a moment that seemed like no one could do anything about it.

Even as the hole was shrinking towards him, Yu IlHan was smiling.

Author’s notes

Spiera understands what dreams are.

What does Yu IlHan’s smile mean!? (T/N: Ain’t that obvious)

Translator’s notes

Try replacing ‘digger’ with ‘monarch’ and see what you get (chapter title)

Special thanks to Daniel P!

1. I think this is doraemon reference.

2. used in Ferata

3. I have not watched the Saw series…

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