Two days ago, Liu Xiao-Wo could only watch as Il-wol was sucked through the door.
Forgetting her injuries, she charged at the archaeologist.
She beat the guy to the point where he couldn’t even walk properly and shouted for him to get out, but it was useless.
“Phihihit!!”
The archaeologist just let out some bizarre laughter and groaned away.
Liu Xiao-Wo, furious to the top of her head, kicked the archaeologist’s head and smashed it.
With a thud, the archaeologist’s body fell to the ground.
But a few minutes later, seeing the archaeologist appear again, humming a tune, she irritably ripped off her inky black gloves and threw them aside.
Liu Xiao-Wo began to pull up ominous magic as she attempted something new.
Five cat-shaped silhouettes danced around her, and the entire ruin that served as the archaeologist’s nest and laboratory began to shake violently.
“Hiieeek?!”
The startled archaeologist rushed to the summoning gate, waving his hands frantically.
“Oh? It’s Alpha.”
On the cliff beside the summoning gate, a projection of Il-wol playing tag with black demon beasts materialized.
Not only could she see the movements, but it was also a portal connecting to a multidimensional realm.
Because of that, Liu Xiao-Wo could even feel the aura emanating from Il-wol as he fought.
The vibrating aura that threatened to destroy the ruins slowly subsided, and she lay in the pond created by Il-wol, quietly watching the video the archaeologist had conjured.
“Ahh! A demon beast on the left!!”
Liu Xiao-Wo became frantic, trying to follow every one of Il-wol’s movements.
“I mean, I get the Water Ball, but what’s with using fire attributes simultaneously?!”
“The lightning strike looks a lot like a Dire Wolf’s skill…”
“What’s his agility stat for those kinds of moves? No, that’s a high-level movement technique using lightning energy…”
“Wow… and he’s even using Meteor? But it feels like there’s a massive gap between low-tier and high-tier magic…”
She found herself only more curious as she observed Il-wol’s every action.
“What on earth are you?”
She was certain after watching Il-wol for two days.
“He’s not human…”
Right now, Il-wol was not human.
Then what about the human form she had seen?
“Now I finally understand why he was special.”
Nodding quietly, she turned to ask the ‘traces’ watching Il-wol beside her.
“You all know, right? Because you’re Alpha’s minions? Right?”
*Clap, Clap, Clap?!!*
Ainz, Zweihander, and even Dry acted all clueless.
“It’d be nice if we could at least communicate… sigh…”
She sighed deeply but soon fixed her gaze back on Il-wol.
—
“It looks like this is a great place to gain experience. But I can’t bring my companions here. It would probably be hard for them to breathe.”
The slow leveling seemed to be because the black demon beasts were a tier below him. Honestly, they’d been quite a hassle to deal with.
Deeper inside, there were Great Beast-level demon beasts quietly coiled up in their territory, but she could barely contemplate fighting them without fearing a pincer attack from other monsters.
Kyaooh───!!
“Alright, I get it! Quit making noise, you bastards!!”
As she unleashed massive Fireballs in all directions, the weakened foes burst one after another, spreading fire everywhere.
– When an enemy is defeated with fire magic, it triggers a large explosion, spreading fire to nearby enemies.
This was an upgraded option since her job change, and it was extremely useful for dealing with multiple foes. If she timed it right, she could make the flames continue spreading.
After a while of glowing like a madman, the area quietly slipped into a stillness as if entering a deep sea.
“Huh… I can finally rest.”
She found herself sitting on the ground without realizing it.
As the environment became free of demon beasts within a 100-meter radius, she felt a wave of exhaustion.
“What am I even doing? Ah, my fate.”
Wuuuu─
Activating the [Sanctuary], she started tossing in mana stones one by one.
Each mana stone was worth at least thirty thousand won, simply flinging them in like pebbles into a river.
The mana stones she acquired seemed high-quality, as just a few significantly expanded the size of the sanctuary.
“With my job change, the sanctuary’s value increased significantly. Hmm…”
She recalled that the sanctuary had added the “hardness of stone.” What she envisioned was using the sanctuary as a shield while sniping from the inside.
“If Yeon-hee is commanding from inside the sanctuary, she’d be safe. Maybe I should throw everything I have in the space?”
Inside the space, the hefty corpses of Necrosquall and Devouring Creeper lay haphazardly.
It was hard to gauge how far the sanctuary could grow if she threw them all in.
Still, she wasn’t investing everything just yet; it was about time she made a decision.
“Ugh… this kind of dilemma is bad for mental health. I feel so sleepy…”
A skeleton feeling drowsy? This showed just how much mental energy she had expended over the past two days.
Tap, tap-
Just as she began to feel her eyelids growing heavy, a sudden brightness flashed in front of her, and someone softly pinched her, startling her to turn her head.
“Alpha…? Are you alright?”
A beautiful woman tilted her head toward her. Who is this cute-looking girl?
“Ahh- Liu Xiao-Wo… has taken off her mask?”
*Clap, Clap, Clap?!*
Having come out of the dimensional gate and now face to face with Liu Xiao-Wo, I gleefully clicked my canines together.
– You have cleared a small quest requested by the “Crazed Desert Archaeologist!”
– You will now connect a dimensional portal to the archaeologist’s ruin.
– The owner of the ruin permits free access!
“Oh? What’s going on here?”
“Phihihit!”
The archaeologist gave a thumbs up at me, sporting an extremely satisfied expression.
“Crazed archaeologist…”
Never mind that, I immediately charged at him and kicked him away.
“Kyheeek?!”
The archaeologist soared into the distance, unable to be seen anymore.
“Damn guy, who do you think made you suffer so much, only to split like that?”
“Phihitphihit!!”
Even while being kicked, the guy burst into laughter before coming up to me and cheerfully spoke.
He was surprised and grateful because he had expected me to only hold off the demon beasts but I had entirely wiped them out instead.
“Surprisingly honest. Strange guy. By the way… Liu Xiao-Wo, what will your reaction be now that this person knows I’m a monster?”
Liu Xiao-Wo did not seem particularly surprised, even though I clicked my canines in reaction.
Someone like her, feeling my aura so closely, couldn’t possibly be unaware that I’m undead.
As I stared back, she seemed to read my thoughts and confessed.
“Ah… actually, I’ve been watching your fights. The archaeologist’s antics seemed to play out like a hologram outside…”
“So that’s what happened. What a useless ability. That archaeologist guy. Still, is it fortunate? Wait, no. If that’s the case, then she has no reason to show me any goodwill anymore? I was supposed to get an artifact from her.”
Just when I thought I might have wasted a precious opportunity, Liu Xiao-Wo looked at me with a somewhat wistful gaze.
“I thought something felt special about you right from the first time we met. To think you’d be afflicted by such a dire ‘curse’. Even with my expertise, I didn’t notice at all.”
“……Huh? Suddenly what curse?”
I tilted my head in bewilderment, but she didn’t stop talking.
“I know someone very skilled at breaking curses, so if you have any thoughts… Well, I understand you might already have a way, I’m sorry for speaking out of turn!”
“So in her mind… it’s not that a monster temporarily transformed into a human, but rather that I was originally human and cursed to become a skeleton soldier?”
But reflecting on it, that wasn’t wrong. I had indeed been human at one point.
“A curse… if you think about it, it’s a curse in a way.”
A curse that requires one to die a hundred times to face true death.
In thinking that way, Liu Xiao-Wo’s deduction was remarkable.
[Imitation]
“Yeah, in a way, it’s similar.”
“Ah…?! The atmosphere has completely changed…”
Once returned to human form, she began to avoid my gaze, unable to say anything while using “breaking curses” as an excuse to set up the next appointment.
I smirked as I caught sight of various beings trapped in the prison behind her.
It might be easy to think of them as the unfortunate creatures that the archaeologist caught, but surprisingly, my thoughts were elsewhere.
“Wow- Most of those entities inside, I’ve never seen before. How many times would [Theft] activate if I just caught them one by one?”
As I considered this while glancing back at the archaeologist, he seemed to understand and made an X gesture with his arms.
Just as I was about to think about striking a deal for clearing out a few more entities within the dimensional gate…
“Uhohohoho?!”
The archaeologist suddenly got very excited and bowed deeply toward one direction!
“What’s going on now?”
Looking in the same direction, there was a golden orb flickering.
“Huh… Isn’t that something I’ve seen before?”
As I pondered, one message popped up.
– The Golden Mimic Tanya is readjusting the ruins.
– After five seconds, it will be exiled to its original world.
“What?! Wait, T-Tanya?!”
What on earth is happening? Tanya, you say?!
As the golden orb that had briefly flickered suddenly appeared to be Tanya?
– The Golden Mimic Tanya offers you, someone with whom it had a strong bond, a small piece of advice.
– …….
“What? I didn’t catch that!”
I reached out my hand towards the golden orb with all my strength, but before I knew it, I was whisked away into a soap-bubble-like orb along with Liu Xiao-Wo.
—
As I was expelled from the archaeologist’s ruins, I kept reflecting on the advice Tanya had given before departure. Although faint, I was sure I heard a rigid yet soft voice saying:
“Go quickly… hurry back, I think it felt like that.”
Was it a suggestion to return to the original dimension quickly?
“What in the world for?”
There shouldn’t have been any significant issues in our dimension over the past two days.
Wuuu──
“Wow- We’re back?”
*Clap, Clap, Clap.*
We returned to the place where the Great Beast ‘Void Corruption Whale’ had devoured us.
Nothing in the surroundings seemed to have particularly changed.
“How’s your body? You look fine to me.”
“Thanks to you… I’ve improved a lot. I think I can summon the cats now…”
She wasn’t guessing; she was already over 70% recovered.
It seemed she was trying to maintain a weak image in front of me, but I could see right through it.
For a moment, Liu Xiao-Wo, delighted to be back in China, started getting teary-eyed.
It was the expression of a woman sensing an impending farewell.
However, I didn’t have the luxury to match her sentiment.
“Something feels off…”
The more I expanded my senses, the more my doubts deepened.
According to my memory, there should be a vast number of people within the realm of sensation.
“There’s no one… just a few.”
Something was wrong.
“But why does the atmosphere feel a bit… strange?”
Liu Xiao-Wo seemed to sense something unusual too.
“For now, I’m going to head to Korea. Let’s meet again next time.”
“Ah… Yes! I hope to see you in a better state next time-! And make sure to contact me! I’ll make preparations worthy of Alpha-nim-”
I brought my finger to her neck and lightly left a mark.
“Ahhh… Ow…”
It must have stung a bit, and her eyes widened as her body trembled.
“Alright. Leaving just this behind may ease my mind. I should take something in return, right?”
I could see the flame mark taking shape on her shoulder.
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