Chapter 19 – Our Sunbae-nim Did This? (3)

[This is ridiculous.  There is no way the curses placed on the dead will be transferred…..]

“Yes, they no longer exist, but they haven’t died yet.  You carry them on your back!  They are placed inside your chest!  Each one of them continue to live on as part of you.  Isn’t that right?”

In a flash, Artpe was able to apply several dozen Slowdown curse on the Death Knight  It creaked as it moved.  It was as if the Death Knight was wearing a rusted armor.  Artpe taunted it.

[Koo-hook…..!]

However, it had no way of counteracting the effect.  This effect was what made the Record Link such a dangerous magic!  It prevented the death of beings that should be dead, and all their power was transferred.  Basically, they could live on within an another entity!

“This is why even the weakest curse will be transferred to you.  If I want to have numerous curses placed on you….  I just have to kill them all.”

Artpe forcefully swung his hand as the shield flew through the air.  The shield moved based on his will.  Even now, the shield was slicing through the falling Zombies and Ghouls.

Its bears repeating that the curse contained within the shield was weak.  It was able to  attach a weak slowdown effect on its target, but the effect could be stacked.

As each Undead fell from the sky, Artpe cut them into pieces with his shield.  It felt as if  shackles were being placed all over the Death Knight’s body every time an Undead was killed.

[Kooo-ahhhhhhhhhh!]

“Of course, the one left behind will be the one to suffer.  This is the biggest reason why the Record Link was banned.  If you didn’t know that, you should study up on it.  Well, it is too late for you to do so.”

Artpe laughed uproariously.  The Death Knight had tried to attack him, yet his efforts were in vain, since Maetel had been able to hold it back.  It had been a long long time, since he had felt this much mirth.

“It is rare to find a curse that can stack infinitely.  Why do you think I haven’t scrapped this lousy shield?  Why do you think I was frugal in its use?”

[Nooo wayyyy.  Noooooooooo waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.  Youuuuuuuuuuu  Baaaaaaaaaa-ssssssssssssss-taaaaaaaaaaard.]

“Yes.”

The power of the slowdown curse within the shield had a widespread effect of causing minuscule slowdown on the target’s intelligence, stamina, Mana and skills.  The Death Knight was feeling the cumulative effect of over hundred of these curses.  The speed of Death Knight’s thought process and the ability to speak had slowed down to a ridiculous degree.

“Yes.  I, Artpe-nim, prepared for the boss battle from the beginning.  I readied all of this for this day when I would dispel the restriction I placed on the Record Link!”

Artpe sneered at the Death Knight, and he took the coolest pose he could come up with for maximum effect.  He used to be one of the Four Heavenly King of the Demon King’s army.  He was a being that acted as if his arrogance had no bounds!  He bragged whenever he gained a sliver of advantage over his enemies!   He did this in the most spiteful and shameless manner!

“Artpe is too cool!”

[Koooooooooh-ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!]

While Artpe was busy posing, the shield tirelessly cut through the body of the falling Zombies and Ghouls.

He had sharpened the edges of the shield in anticipation for this day.  There was no way its edges would dull right now.  The number of monsters killed went from several dozen to several hundred then to several thousand.

[Ggoo-oooooooh,  ooooooooooooooooooooooooooh.]

At this point in time, the Death Knight had for all intents and purposes became worse than a level 3 Goblin. The Undead, who tried to test the heroes, had run out of all its opportunities.

It hadn’t even been able to put up a good fight.  It hadn’t been able to use its secret technique.  It had been unable to give its cool final line nor was it able to lecture the heroes.  It had pathetically frozen in place before it was able to punish Artpe.

“Eh-eet.”

Meanwhile, Maetel was being sensible by distancing herself from the Death Knight.  If she killed the Death Knight right now, its power would be transferred into the Zombies and Ghouls.  They would harden to a point where the they wouldn’t be able to handle them.  She had arrived at a very logical conclusion.

“No, Maetel!”

Maetel was patting herself on the back when Artpe gave her instructions to the contrary.

“If that bastard kills itself in a suicide, our reward will become infinitely worse!  We don’t want to receive dropped items from really high level Zombies or Ghouls!  We want the dropped items of a Death Knight created from gathering all the energy through Record Link!  You have to prevent it from killing itself!”

“Ah, all right!  As expected, Artpe is smart!”

Who in the world would call these wicked people as being heroes!   They were superbly rotten to the core that even the Demon King would come study under their tutelage!

The Death Knight watched Maetel break through the flood of monsters falling from the sky, and she immediately disarmed it.   It was vexed that it couldn’t move to stop her, but Artpe had killed an excessive amount of cursed monsters.  It was hard for the Death Knight to even lift a single finger.

[Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaapppppppppppppppppppppppp……..]

“Ah.  It is game over for it since the curse has stacked this much.  Maetel, you should now help me kill the others.”

“Yes!”

They had descended this Dungeon for the past year, so they were well versed in what to do now.  There were a lot of monsters tied to the Record Link right now.  It was as if someone had barfed them all up.  It was a good thing Artpe and Maetel had faced all of them before while they came down here. If not, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.

“Eh-eet, eh-eet.”

[Ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhng.]

[Ggeeeeeeeeeeeee, ggeeeeeeeeeeeeee.]

The Death Knight didn’t tie himself to so many beings so that it would die after twitching slowly across the ground like a cicada larva.   Of course, Artpe and Maetel didn’t care about that!

Maetel had made sure to cripple the Death Knight so it couldn’t kill itself.  Then she put away her sword as she beat the nearby monsters to death using a bone club.

Artpe hummed as he controlled the shield.  By the time he killed all of them, the shield would become unusable.   However, this shield was only useful for this Dungeon.  He didn’t care what happened to it after this.

“You are really a genius, Artpe.”

“Yes, I do think I’m somewhat of a genius.  Maetel is also quite the genius.”

“Thank you!  I think I fought fairly well even if I say so myself!”

The two heroes kept praising each other as they cleared the Dungeon in a friendly manner. The Death Knight was rolling around on the floor like a larvae, so what could mere Zombies and Ghouls do against them!   It was as if they were hit by lightning!

The lucky ones died immediately after they hit the floor.  The unlucky ones already had the misfortune of being Undead, yet they were in a situation where they couldn’t even move properly.  They were only able to blink their eyes until it was their turn to die.

[Goo-ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh.]

It was unknown as to who had created this Dungeon, but at the very least, the creator of this Dungeon probably didn’t place the Record Link expecting to see such a sight!  This wasn’t a Dungeon that was meant to grow candidates for becoming the Demon King!  This was a place built to develop heroes!   It was the builder’s mistake in assuming that all heroes were goody two shoes pushovers.

‘Ah.  Ahhhhhhhhh······.’

The Death Knight had lost both its arms, and it had been completely disarmed.  As it rolled around the floor, the Death Knight watched the two evil heroes clear the Zombies and Ghouls.

Every time one of the Undead died, a minuscule amount of power was coming in towards the Death Knight.  Most of them were cursed, so it was a scary proposition where the slowdown effect was much higher than the strengthening effect.  It had lost the power to move around a long time ago, and now it was having a hard time thinking.

The Death Knighted lamented over its misfortune.  It had failed to read Artpe’s outrageous abilities, so it mocked itself on its own ignorance.  It moaned at the sight of the broken Dungeon.  The Death Knight wondered if it could really entrust it all to them……

It decided not to think about it anymore.

Four days passed.  It took a long time even though the two were killing defenseless monsters.

From the midpoint on, the records of monsters had started to overlap too much.   From that point on, the constitution of the remaining Undead became unnecessarily high.  This was why it was taking so long.  The only danger that posed a threat to the two heroes was them becoming too tired, and falling asleep in front of the monsters.

“Did we really kill all of them?”

“Yes, we killed every single one of them.  We even killed the ones stuck up there.”

“Yes, I also confirmed it.”

This Dungeon was ridiculously large and deep.  It took him around 30 minutes to sweep the place for monsters that were still alive with his Read All Creation ability.

However, it was all over now.  There was only one monster left in the entire Dungeon.  It was the Death Knight that was only capable of rolling around on the floor.

“Hmmm.”

Artpe wanted to ask if it wanted have its last words, but there was no response from the Death Knight even after Artpe pounded on it.  It was acting like a normal corpse.

“Artpe, you have to kill it.  Currently, my level is too high compared to yours.  We have to balance it out.”

“I knew you would say that.”

Artpe raised his shield.  He had killed numerous monsters with it so it was damaged and deformed.  It was hard to call it a shield now.  It was basically a lump of metal.

He wondered if the Death Knight would be satisfied with being killed by a lump of metal, which was neither a weapon nor a defensive gear.  Of course, it was  no concern of his.

“Koohk.  Eh-eet.  Crap.  It is so damn hard.”

Artpe diligently pounded the Death Knight with the lump of metal.  However, the Death Knight had absorbed all the records to reach its final form, so it wouldn’t die from an attack of that caliber.  Artpe had no choice, but to forcefully push his Mana into the lump of metal.

“If you don’t die from this, I’ll call you my teacher!”

He placed the lump of metal beneath the Death Knight’s body, and he immediately used the Hyper Rubbing spell. The lump of metal rubbed against the Death Knight with a ludicrous amount of force!

It couldn’t be helped.  The surface of the Death Knight’s body touching the lump of metal was starting to fracture a little bit.  It was a brutal sight!  It made one wonder if this was some new form of torture!

[Go-oooooooooooooooh.]

It seemed the Death Knight wanted to say something, but its reaction had slowed down too much.  One couldn’t tell what it was trying to say.  Artpe wanted to end its misery, so he increased his Mana output.  The rubbing became more fierce, and it was accompanied by a change.

“Ah.  The lump of metal is becoming red-hot!”

“It’s a Mana reaction.  That lump of metal used to be an Artifact. The Mana infused within it will become agitated by the Mana I injected.  It’ll cause an explosion.  The explosion caused by detonating an Artifact is much stronger than detonating a simple rock.  You should keep that in mind.”

“Then why did you activate the Hyper Rubbing?”

“I just wanted to tease that bastard….   Duck!”

At that moment, the lump of metal exploded!  The Death Knight received the entirety of the incredible force generated by the explosion.  As a result, it was able to find its eternal rest. It probably would have been much happier by the fact that it was taken out this way.

“Koo-ooooooooooooooooh.”

“Koohp.”

This was obvious, but an incredible amount of EXP entered into Artpe and Maetel when the Death Knight was killed. The primary form of the completed Death Knight had been incredible already, but the Dungeon had been restored to its original form.  All the record of the monsters were gathered into a single being!   This result was to be expected.

“Artpe.  It feels as if my head is going to split open-ahhhhh.”

“Don’t worry.  I feel the same way….  Koo-heek.”

Even in his previous life, he had never experience such successive level ups.  Mana filled up within his body as it kept evolving.  It put a great amount of stress on his mind.

“Ughhh, Artpe.”

Artpe was trying to hold back the urge to lose consciousness when he heard Maetel calling for him.  He raised his head to respond to her when he realized why she had called out to him.

“Wow.  This is nuts.”

“Ggoo-oooooooooh.”

Maybe, the killing of all the Monsters connected to the Record link was the impetus.  The Dungeon was once again going through a change!

If more monsters came out once again, it would have been really annoying.  Fortunately, this wasn’t the case. The Dungeon was quickly losing its size.  The square was also getting smaller, and the material making up the Dungeon was changing.

“This is as if…..   Ah.”

The cherry on top was the fountain that appeared in the middle of the square.  Maetel’s body and mind was tired, so she was about to let out a shout of joy.  As she was about to run towards the clear water, she paused to look back at Artpe.

“That’s poisoned water, right!  Aren’t I right, Artpe!”

She thought she had shown sound judgment by stopping, so Maetel let out a fake cough.

He put on a bright smile as he faced her.  He spoke to her..

“Nope, that is just regular water.”