Chapter 71: 71

Splaaaash—

Slice, slice, sliiiice—

Su-hyeun’s sword started cutting up the huge body of the Work Gigant into several pieces . The creature’s sturdy hide was penetrated through, its bones were sliced up, and its body was chopped into chunks .

Kiiiiieeehk—!

Parasitic insects living within the Worm Gigant’s body all crawled outside . These hundreds of creatures spewed out toxins and pounced on Su-hyeun next .

It was then .

Ruuuumble—!

Boom, ka-boooom—!

With Su-hyeun as the center, a chain of explosions went off all around him . The blue-colored divine Flame burned the toxins away and killed off the insects .

Soon afterward, the Worm Gigant stopped breathing, and just as every single insect was burned to crisp…

[1000 achievement points have been acquired . ]

[Warmth has been added to the Divine Beast’s Egg . ]

[The Divine Beast within the egg is satisfied . ]

[The Divine Beast’s Egg is beginning to hatch . ]

Su-hyeun inwardly cried out in elation .

The past ten days of dungeon crawling was all for the sake of hatching this egg . The percentage of hatching rate went up a little every time he killed a monster and snatched away their “warmth . ”

The current trial also ended up playing a crucial role in hastening the hatching of the egg .

Monsters flooded out nonstop for almost two hours straight, so from Su-hyeun’s perspective, he should raise both of his hands and praise the sun .

And just as he suspected, the boss appearing at the end, the Worm Gigant, played a key role in hatching of this egg .

He could sense the Divine Beast’s Egg currently stored in his Inventory shake around a little bit .

It seemed that the egg would hatch little by little, indicating that perhaps it wasn’t supposed to break out of the shell immediately . However, it didn’t feel like the process would take a long time . On top of that, celebrating the successful conclusion to this trial came first .

“Is it all over?” Aile asked .

“Most likely . Although it hasn’t been two hours yet… . ”

Since it was brought up, Su-hyeun decided to check the remaining time .

[Elapsed time: 01:57:54 . ]

About two minutes still remained .

But, the boss was defeated already, so in reality, the trial was as good as over .

Su-hyeun looked back at Aile . “You worked hard . ”

“Thank you . You too . I managed to survive thanks to you . ”

Aile believed that, if Su-hyeun wasn’t around, she’d not have lived through this dungeon, so she was thanking him earnestly .

After hearing her words of gratitude, he shifted his gaze over to the bundle of Ether stones put away to the side, plus the mid- and high-grade Ether stones still stuck in the round tower . “All of those should fetch a pretty good price, yes?”

“Pardon? Ah, of course . For both the mid- and high-grade Ether stones, you can supposedly demand any price you desire, so…”

As expected, the Ether stones seemed to be a rare resource in this world, as well . But then again, that’d be pretty obvious considering that the awakeners, already invaluable assets in themselves, had to risk their lives to acquire those stones .

“That’s a relief . ”

“Relief? What do you mean?” Aile formed a puzzled expression after hearing his unexpected words . But she soon thought of something and nodded her head . “Ah, I see . Warrick, I presume you haven’t had a chance to personally sell the Ether stones yet? Please be rest assured . If we take all of them out of here and sell them off, we’ll have more than enough to pay off my family debt and still have considerable sum remaining . ”

It was not just a bundle filled with low-ranked Ether stones, but also several mid- and high-grade ones, too . This amount was easily more than enough to completely wipe off the debt accrued by the fallen noble family .

It was unknown how much would be left after the debt had been settled, but still, it should be enough to open up a small shop somewhere .

Su-hyeun smiled after hearing Aile’s reply . Fortunately for him, he got the answer he wanted to hear . “Sounds good . ”

[The trial has been cleared . ]

[The exit is opening . ]

The time elapsed and Su-hyeun confirmed the exit opening at the foot of the round tower . He then continued on . “That’s why I’m relieved . ”

“… . Pardon?”

That’s why he was relieved?

What did he mean?

Aile formed a truly confused expression this time . But then, it quickly morphed into one of pure shock as she turned around .

“W-Warrick??”

Su-hyeun, standing right before her eyes only a second ago, was now gone without a trace .

Aile hurriedly searched the underground cavity filled with monster corpses . In the end, though, she failed to find the man who disappeared without saying goodbye, and stood there in a sheer daze .

But then, the bundle of Ether stones resting on the floor caught her eyes .

“It can’t be… . ”

Aile’s eyes grew larger and larger .

Only then did she finally realize what Su-hyeun meant earlier .

Plop—

She plopped down right on the spot .

Someone else .

Su-hyeun meant himself when he said those words .

“Ah, ah… . ”

Drip, drip—

Her tears that didn’t flow when her family was ruined, all of her emotions piling up endlessly ever since then, began flooding out all at once .

“Thank… you… . ”

Not one person offered her a helping hand, but when someone did, it was not her friend nor family, but a near-stranger .

She wanted to say something, anything, to express her gratitude but Su-hyeun was long gone by then .

“Thank you, thank you… . ”

Aile remained sitting on the ground, staring at the exit and muttering to herself for a long, long time .

Act 3

As expected, the reward for the 21st floor’s trial was a fair amount of achievement points but not much else .

Bringing out the Ether stones with him was too difficult . In order to bring those found within the trials, one would need the “Property of Dimension” order form .

Of course, if he really wanted to, he could have brought them out . He could’ve used the order form to bring out that one particular Ether stone . Indeed, he wouldn’t have felt shortchanged if he decided to use the form inside his pocket to bring out the high-grade Ether stone .

However, he didn’t really need one, and Aile’s situation also weighed on his mind, too .

Su-hyeun roughly scratched his head .

His thoughts were complicated, but he never regretted his actions after making up his mind . Not only was he not the type to be hung up over money, but he figured that it’d also be a good idea to horde some achievement points for a rainy day . Also, there was something else even more important than that to worry about .

Su-hyeun’s heart fluttered, wondering what might come out from this egg seemingly only a moment away from hatching .

When he reached the 22nd floor’s world, Su-hyeun opened the doorway and returned home immediately . Of course, he didn’t forget to use the “Property of Dimension” order form to bring out the egg with him .

There it was, a plain egg the size of a man’s head . Unlike before, though, a certain warmth could be felt on its surface .

Su-hyeun had never witnessed the birth of a Divine Beast before, and as a result, a certain worry began settling in his head .

While thinking about this and that, he waited for the egg to hatch .

If he took it outside and an accident happened, now that would be a huge tragedy . He heard that a Divine Beast recognized the first person it saw after the hatching as its parent, and would follow it right till its dying day .

Which meant that the birth of the Divine Beast had to be done in a place with no one but him . He waited while occasionally touching the surface of the egg, and before he knew it, half a day flew by .

This was rather strange . The egg that showed signs of hatching at any moment still didn’t want to crack .

“…What’s going on here?”

Su-hyeun frowned as thoughts of “it can’t be” invaded his mind .

He pondered this quandary for a little while before placing his hand on the egg and injecting his magical energy a little bit at a time .

When he did…

Crack, craaaack—

Cracks began running on the egg’s surface . Soon afterward, a small arm broke through the shell and emerged outside .

Crack! Craaack—!

What revealed itself was a tiny but long red dragon, lazily yawning away .

“A dragon?”

The creature curled its 50 centimeter-long body and quivered ever so slightly .

One might mistake it for a snake, but the pair of arms and small wings on its back undoubtedly proved that this little guy was a dragon . Plus, a snake wouldn’t pop out from the so-called “Divine Beast’s Egg” anyway .

Rather than a dragon’s face, though, its roundish head somewhat vaguely resembled a turtle, instead . Su-hyeun thought that that could be attributed to it being still a young hatchling .

But…

Snore, snore—

The dragon was fast asleep .

It had been jolted a little by the injection of magical energy and quivered around a bit, but returned to sleeping once more .

The reason why the egg didn’t shatter even though the hatching had commenced a long time ago was…

“…As I thought, you were asleep . ”

As he suspected, the creature was in la-la land .

Su-hyeun groaned . He was wondering why there was no response for half a day, but this little guy was sleeping inside the egg .

When he looked back to how he almost died from anticipation in the past several hours, he felt somewhat bitter inside . Not only that, he managed to wake it up but the dragon simply went right back to sleep, too .

Of course, a wonderful thing would remain as wonderful regardless of what happened .

According to what Su-hyeun knew about the Divine Beasts, dragons were considered to be the top-tier species among them .

This newly-hatched dragon was far closer to the eastern dragon in looks than the western one . He couldn’t tell its exact abilities yet, but there was no doubt he got himself a massive jackpot here .

“I’ll be in your care from now on…”

Su-hyeun pondered what he should call this baby dragon sleeping before his eyes and eventually spoke its name .

“Miru . ”

Miru . The pure Korean word for “dragon . ”

Su-hyeun always found coming up with names a bit of a pain in the neck .

***

Miru only became active after sleeping through the entire day .

Su-hyeun patiently waited until Miru woke up . The baby dragon eventually did, and when its sparkling eyes discovered him, quickly approached its new parent .

Gurung, gurung—

Miru, making happy humming sounds floated towards Su-hyeun, landed on his shoulder, and began rubbing its head on his cheek .

Well, it certainly was acting cute .

“Hey, Miru? What’s your specialty?”

“Gurung?”

Miru tilted its head at Su-hyeun’s question before resuming rubbing itself against his cheek .

He could only sigh .

He didn’t go through all that toil on the 21st floor just to raise a pet . In addition, it was a dragon, a top-ranked creature, so there simply had to be some uses for this guy .

Gururung—

Gurung—

Miru wrapped around Su-hyeun’s neck . Since it didn’t have any fur or scales, he could feel its slick hide against his skin in its full glory .

It sure was cute, indeed .

So cute, but… .

“Miru… . ”

… . To think, trying to communicate with a Divine Beast that didn’t understand you would prove to be this difficult .

Unfortunately, according to Su-hyeun’s knowledge base, no such skill existed, which meant he’d have to gradually discover what Miru’s abilities were .

Abusing the creature, busy demanding to know what it was capable of when it just hatched? Now that was not something a father should do .

Su-hyeun looked at Miru wrapped around his neck and about to fall asleep again and began thinking to himself .

He also thought about something else as well .

He was one of the handfuls of S-rank awakeners in South Korea .

It wasn’t as if they were acquaintances, and since that man also acted on his own while not being affiliated with any group, Su-hyeun had pretty much given up interacting with him, thinking that running into him would be very difficult .

But now, Su-hyeun changed his mind .

He used to worry about how to meet that man, but now, there was no need for that .

Su-hyeun, with Miru still wrapped around his neck, settled in front of his computer and logged into Abyss Online .

[A dragon came out from a Divine Beast’s Egg . Mister Song Hyeong-gi, I’ll be waiting for your reply . ]

The man who was an S-rank Awakener, who also dealt with Divine Beasts – Song Hyeong-gi .

He was a renowned Divine Beast enthusiast .