Chapter 44: Episode 9 _ Blow It Up (2)
The enhancent masters didn’t have the ability to reach
10 in one go. On a good day, they might get to
5 by so stroke of luck, but that was it.
“That’s... impossible, sir!” the man protested. It was a natural reaction. He almost reverted to casual speech, but the sharp swords, ready to strike at any mont, helped him control his anger.
“Why isn’t it possible?” Simin poured oil on the fire. His tone was matter-of-fact, laced with a thick layer of mockery, as if to say, ‘But I can do it.’
“I don’t need to show you, do I? These knights right here saw
succeed all the way to
14 without a single failure.”
The masters were silent.
Simin added a little boast for good asure. All eyes turned to the knights he indicated. Filled with doubt and suspicion, they watched as the knights nodded. They didn’t particularly like this adventurer, but they were under the Emperor’s orders, and they had indeed found that part of his demonstration quite astonishing.
“Now, begin. Unless you want
to take that Aura Control Device.”
The masters remained silent.
At his triumphant command, the enhancent masters exchanged glances and reluctantly gripped their hamrs. They didn’t want to do this. They hated the feeling of being tested by so young punk, and they feared the imminent shattering of their lofty pride. Because it was true. Just as Simin said, an enhancent master was simply soone who struck an item based on a fixed probability. They lived lavishly, flaunting the rarity of their profession—fewer than a hundred on the entire continent—but they knew better than anyone that when put on trial like this, they were utterly powerless.
Watching them suffer, Khan clicked his tongue with a bitter expression. He had felt the sa way when he first t Simin. Fortunately, he had overco it and acknowledged Simin’s skill, but could they? They were complete strangers. Moreover, Simin possessed a talent they could never hope to obtain. It was probably impossible. They would never be able to resolve the envy and jealousy festering in their hearts. Simin was an adventurer, unbound by the people of this world, and now he was soaring with a great dragon—the Emperor—on his back. That made it all the more bitter. The masters’ ossified pride would only be shattered, never to recover.
With a sense of regret, Khan began to hamr. All around, lights flashed with success and failure. It was a perfectly normal sight. Then, he felt the grating shudder of failure from his own hamr. A
1 enhancent had failed.
“Ahem.”
He glanced around furtively before taking a step back.
3.
“La la la!”
Rolling around in a guest room more luxurious than any in the kingdom, Simin couldn’t wipe the grin off his face. He still hadn’t found a solution to the important problem, but business was business, and pleasure was pleasure.
“Wow, my life is so spectacular. I can’t believe I got this here.”
A ring was now on his left hand, next to his ring finger. It was more ornate and impressive-looking than the Ring of Blessing, but still not particularly eye-catching in its design. And yet, it was a 500-gold coins coin item—an Aura Control Device. A magnificent item that could even be turned on and off at will. And there were other trinkets, too. The enhancent masters, who had been all but mugged, were probably sobbing in a bathroom sowhere, but thanks to them, not a trace of an aura could be seen on his body.
“This thing is kind of a piece of crap, though.”
Would a day ever co when he’d actually use this? He had his doubts, but it was expensive, and having it was better than not. He already had a use in mind for it, too.
“Hehehe.”
If it ever beca too much of a hassle, he could just sell it.
“I wonder what effect enhancing this would have?”
[Aura Control Device]
* Grade: Rare
* Option 1: Controls the user’s aura, preventing it from leaking outwards.
* Option 2: Can be turned ON/OFF by infusing it with mana.
It didn’t seem like there was much potential for growth through enhancent. He let go of the idea. ‘I shouldn’t enhance this.’
Thanks to his supernatural ability, he could max out an item’s enhancent with a minimum number of stones and without any failures, but when you got down to it, that was still money—one gold coins per stone. For a
15 enhancent, that was 15 gold coins. Of course, considering the value of a
15 item, 15 gold coins was nothing, but that was from soone else’s perspective. To him, even 15 gold coins was sothing he wanted to save as much as possible.
‘Fifteen gold coins is $1,500. That’s not chump change. If I enhance this and sell it, will I even break even?’
A cold, hard calculation was necessary before enhancing. As a dark gar, he had to consider an item’s depreciation more than his character’s growth. In that sense, enhancing the Aura Control Device was completely unnecessary. He’d be lucky if it didn’t just break.
“Huh?”
Just as he was feeling smug about his rational decision, a thought surfaced.
“Break?”
He retraced the unconscious thought process.
“What if it breaks?”
In the world of enhancent, it was an obvious and catastrophic event. But for him, it was an utterly foreign word. The concept, which had been temporarily erased from his mind, now consud his thoughts. Why?
‘If it breaks, it’ll disappear.’ And restoration wasn’t possible.
“Can you enhance a curse?”
His complicated thoughts connected that unfamiliar word to the most troubleso problem he was currently facing. It was a paradigm shift. Considering his brain usually only functioned when it was ti to eat or make money, this was an astonishingly creative leap.
“Wow. Holy shit. I’ve got goosebumps.”
A thrill shot through him. ‘I ca up with this? I’m insane. Absolutely insane.’ At the sa ti, he began to think more deeply. It had started as a simple, stray thought, but now that he saw a possibility, a glimr of hope, he would cling to it until the very end.
“If I enhance the princess and she ‘breaks,’ she’ll die too. No, wait. You can’t enhance people in the first place.”
He had confird that bodies couldn’t be enhanced after his second awakening, when he’d hamred his own arm just in case. He’d hit it two, three tis—hard enough that it would have broken in real life—but there was no reaction. He was certain about that part. So, what then?
The next thought that ca to mind was the detached palace. Would it work?
The possibility of enhancing it was higher than for a living person. But the common-sense question of whether such a massive building could even be enhanced made the odds seem low.
‘It has to work.’ He shook his head, pushing away the negative thoughts. There was no ti for that. He was in a situation where he had to make the impossible possible, yet here he was, thinking sothing was impossible before he even knew for sure. He chastised himself and rose from the bed. He had planned to worry about the enhancent tomorrow, but he couldn’t possibly wait.
‘It was called Sanctuary of the Curse. What if the curse on the palace is a kind of magic circle...’
His thoughts didn’t stop even as he walked. His brain was working at a fever pitch, enough that if he’d studied this hard in his senior year of high school, he could have gotten into a top university. It was the sa thrill he felt when he saw the random box. His creativity wasn’t completely shot after all!
He marveled at himself as he crossed the vast Imperial Palace grounds and arrived at the detached palace, located deep within. And that’s when it hit him.
Ah! He realized the most critical flaw in his experint. “Dammit.”
This was an enhancent ant to fail, ant to destroy. To destroy sothing, it had to be at least
8, and realistically, it needed to be
12 for it to break upon failure. But the normal success rate for a
12 enhancent was practically zero, so he’d have to rely on the base 10% to 30% chance.
That ant he would have to pour an unimaginable number of enhancent stones into it. And was he supposed to bear that cost himself?
‘No way!’
He changed direction. Han Simin was a man who was very clear about who paid for what.
* * *
The Emperor, having been dragged out of bed, did not look pleased—and for good reason. Who would dare wake a sleeping emperor? The previous emperor had never been subjected to such a thing, and not even his most beloved concubine had ever imagined it.
“What? You have a solution?”
“Yes, that’s why I woke you. Co on, hurry up.”
But upon hearing the reason, the Emperor’s expression brightened as if his foul mood had never existed. He found hope in Simin’s confident words. He no longer even cared about Simin’s casual tone, which made it impossible to tell if he was the Emperor or just so guy from down the street.
“...You’re going to enhance the detached palace?”
“To be precise, the curse’s magic circle. There’s sothing laid upon the palace you called a ‘Sanctuary of the Curse.’”
“How do you know of that?”
“I’m an adventurer.”
Simin gave a simple explanation, then used his trump card to prevent any further questions. Then, he held out his hand.
The Emperor looked at him questioningly.
“Why do you think I bothered to wake Your Majesty instead of just showing you the result tomorrow morning?”
“Do you need sothing?”
Simin replied, “I need enhancent stones.”
“And you had to tell
this personally?”
“They said I needed your approval.”
It was a bold demand. The Emperor’s gaze shifted. The ruler of the continent’s cold eyes swept over his surroundings as if trying to figure out the culprit who told him this.
A startled royal eunuch hastily made an excuse. “Your Majesty, he said he needed at least several thousand...”
“Give them to him.”
“Yes, yes, Your Majesty.”
The eunuch, his legs trembling, hurried away. He must have known that approval was necessary, but he surely never imagined Simin would actually wake the sleeping Emperor in the middle of the night. The Emperor himself hadn’t thought he would be woken for such a trivial matter. All he could do was laugh in disbelief. At first, it had been amusing, but now he was genuinely curious. Just how far did an adventurer’s audacity go? Or perhaps they left their sense of fear behind in another world. The funnier part was that he himself was tolerating such insolence. Not all adventurers could be like this.
Once again, the Emperor marveled at Simin’s death-defying social skills. Just then, nurous palace servants appeared, carrying piles of enhancent stones.
Hmph.
It was a mountain of at least a thousand enhancent stones. Simin feigned a serious expression, swallowing hard as he composed himself. ‘Alright, Simin. Play this smart.’ This was the perfect ti for a little embezzlent. A massive, uncountable quantity of goods was in front of him—it was a thief’s dream. Though countless eyes were on him, their focus wasn’t on a few missing stones.
"Alright. Everyone, please step back," Simin announced.
They looked at him, puzzled.
For the sake of his plan, he dismissed them all, even the Emperor.
"You could go get a full night’s sleep, and I still might not be finished by the ti you return. This ti, the goal isn’t success, but destruction. No one can predict when it will happen. If I’m lucky, it could break on the ninth try, but in the worst-case scenario, I could use up all these stones, and it still might not break. I also have so preliminary work to do. This could take several days."
His logic, backed by a plausible reason, was effective. Soon, the area around the detached palace was empty, except for two knights left to stand guard.
Then, the door opened.
"You heard everything, right?"
"Yes," the Princess replied, standing demurely.
"Honestly, I don’t know if this will work or not. I haven’t tried it yet."
"I am grateful for your efforts alone."
"Just trying to make a living," Simin said.
Every ti he saw her, he was struck by how little she resembled a princess. She was so polite. Considering her father was the Emperor, it wouldn’t have been strange for her to be arrogant or hysterical from the curse. Her deanor naturally made Simin’s own speech more courteous.
"Even if this works, it is dangerous. From what I understand, you’ll die without the Sanctuary of the Curse."
"...Yes."
"That’s why I need to do so prep work first."
The Princess looked at him, puzzled.
"First, I’ll confirm if the curse can even be enhanced. Then, I’ll create a large batch of
14 Holy Water before attempting the final enhancent."
"Oh!"
It was an incredibly tedious process, but Simin showed no sign of reluctance as he approached, hamr in hand.
"Haah..."
‘Please work.’ It was a desperate prayer. His only hope was the single line of text that had appeared after his second awakening: Expand Enhancent Target!
‘Please...’ he prayed, and brought the hamr down.
* * *
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