Chapter 555 – The Cursed Throne
And the appearance of a huge red dragon revealed in front of his colleagues. At the scene, the party swallows dry saliva and begins to look at the vision.
“Don’t be too nervous. It’s an illusion.”
“Welcome…?”
The appearance of the red dragon in front of me was too vivid to be called fake. To be fake, the monster in front of me was standing in a way too vivid.
“Yes. It is an illusion close to reality that I created using my powers. From now on, I will use this to conduct mock battles every day.
“…It’s an illusion, but will it be training?”
Bruno approaches the dragon and asks Seong-il while looking at the dragon. Seong-il answers his question with a playful smile.
“It’s an illusion, but if you’re not careful, you’ll be in trouble? The attack will feel real.”
“…Then it wouldn’t be an illusion?”
“Well… You can see it that way. Anyway, get ready!! Excluding the hamster.”
“What?! All of a sudden?! And why is the Apostle of Knowledge, the strongest force?”
“Because a wizard will serve one person just by memorizing spells without training. It’s a little strange to include a hamster as an illusion.”
“Hehe… Jjiik.”
The proud hamster and the party who are embarrassed by the sudden words of Seong-il. Whether they do it or not, Seong-il spares them because of the energy that is still being consumed.
“This fantasy is not forever!! Are you wasting your valuable time? Everyone, get your weapons up quickly!!”
In the meantime, Seong-il’s alter ego, which he released in advance, brings their equipment and releases it on the floor in front of their colleagues.
“Get ready to demonstrate the tactics learned from the previous day’s discussion!!”
Seong-il decided to use this opportunity to train his teammates and find out the usefulness of his newly awakened ability.
He takes up the wooden doll again, summons an enhanced clone, and hands him his gear.
“You help them over there.”
“Huh!!”
Assuming his role to his alter ego, he handed various potions to his regular alter ego to prepare for emergencies.
‘Ah, by any chance… Wouldn’t it be possible to use stealth that is stronger than magic by using illusion?’
While his colleagues look foolish, Seong-il tries to hide himself from them, but feels an idea flash.
Because of this, he casts illusions and tries to hide his aura. As if it doesn’t exist in this world.
‘Oh…!!’
Then, Seong-il’s body enters the fantasy world. Then, the presence of Seongil faded to the extreme.
“…!!”
In the eyes of his colleagues, he seems to have disappeared like a ghost, so they look dumbfounded in surprise.
‘Oh, it worked.’
And because he was checking the senses of his colleagues in real time through empathy, Seong-il feels that his cover-up was working properly.
‘…Will it be eaten by a strong enemy?’
Naturally, Seong-il envisions using this technology against monsters such as aliens in the real world or demons in the game world.
‘…For now, let’s focus on Dalian.’
But, that’s for a while. To focus on training his comrades, Seong-il stops his thoughts and opens his inventory to take out the treasured artifacts.
‘Coathing the body of the dragon with the Ethereal Stone of matter…’
Seong-il puts the material Ethereal Stone into the middle of the dragon’s illusion through telekinesis, and materializes the dragon’s body with the stone.
『Kooooo!!!』
“…!!”
Then Seong-il uses his illusions to make him roar. He rushes the dragon and attacks the group with its tail in order to enlighten his bewildered colleagues.
“Fake bastard!!”
Perhaps because Seong-il told him it was an illusion, Ban foolishly made the mistake of holding a shield and trying to block his attack.
Aaaaa!!!!
However, thanks to the power of the Ethereal Stone, a large amount of heavy material was clumped together in the dragon’s illusion, and thanks to this, Ban, who was hit directly by a barrage of iron, floated up and flew into the air as if he had been hit by a truck.
‘…Are you okay?’
That time when I was stabbed thinking I hadn’t attacked a little too badly.
“Dare…!!”
Despite being hit quite hard, Van quickly rises from the floor and rises from his seat with a slightly angry look on his sword and shield.
‘Are you all right…? After all, is it because of the power of God?’
Ban’s physical state, as if her body had become as strong as cast iron. Seeing this, Seong-il feels more at ease and attempts a violent attack on his ally.
『The protection of chaos is with me.』
In the meantime, Gaaz calmly holds his sword and casts magic unique to the race he grew up with. Then, his sword began to glow with gray power.
Although it is a class magic that is not very high, the unique magic of the other races that handles the power of chaos shows strong power that is not like the class.
‘Isn’t that magic unique to an out-bred race? It’s definitely great.’
Gaaz wears unusual buff magic and rushes at the fantasy dragon at terrifying speed.
‘Originally, when Gaaz rushed, Ban and Bruno had to apply the buff quickly… But they couldn’t do it because they weren’t breathing yet.’
However, if you think about it a little, the situation is understandable enough. Unlike Gaaz, a strong man who has been an enforcer for a long time, Ban and Bruno have only been given powers by God for less than two days. It was only natural that they did not act promptly.
‘But, you mean the level of the enemy we have to fight isn’t easy enough to be considerate of such a situation? Gaaz’s attack could be easily tolerated, but… In that case, my colleagues would feel less.’
Thinking so, Seong-il decides to nullify Gaaz’s attack.
‘Time stopped!’
Seong-il takes out the 『Spellbook of All Things』 From his inventory and uses the 9th class ultimate magic time stop to stop time.
After that, Seongil casts powerful dispel magic and magic resistance reduction in the place where all his colleagues are gathered. Sprays a powerful wide-area debuff magic.
“Kuh…?!”
While breaking through, a terrifying magic storm blew up, and Gaaz was puzzled when the buff magic unique to his tribe was released all at once.
Seeing this, Seong-il puts on a triumphant expression and infuses power into the Ethereal Stone in the spirit.
『Wow!!!』
Then, after reading Seongil’s will, the Ethereal Stone emits a powerful wave of power and begins to emit a ruthless mental storm in all directions.
‘Uh… It’s difficult to push too hard. Only the level of the 7th class spirit spell used by dragons…’
Because the purpose of training was to the end, excessive violence was unnecessary, so Seong-il reduced the attack to a weaker level and then sprayed a mental storm baptism everywhere.
“Keugh…!!”
Upon receiving the baptism, the weakest of the party, Senna and Seongil’s alter ego collapsed on the spot in agony.
At least, Van and Bruno, who are full of divine power, frown and are barely holding on.
‘If I do this, I must have felt a lot.’
Seong-il thought that his colleagues would have realized what kind of catastrophe would happen if they did not act as they had prepared in advance.
To end the fight, he animates a phantasmagoric dragon made flesh with the Ethereal Stone and unleashes merciless attacks with his massive head and tail.
“Quaaaaagh!!!”
‘Oh…? That’s an illusion… You feel pain from that attack?’
As Seong-il said, except for the dragon’s head and tail, the rest of the body has no physical strength.
However, perhaps because he couldn’t grasp the boundary between reality and fantasy, Bruno interestingly shows pain when he is stepped on by the dragon.
‘This is the power of the clear sea…!!’
Seong-il feels a thrill as he realizes the sincerity of the words of the scriptures that if you keep your enemies from knowing the truth, you can hurt them even with lies.
‘If I properly mix fantasy and truth like this, I can harm the enemy with my fantasy!!’
Seong-il starts to get a sense of how to use the bright environment in the future. Grateful for this sparring, which was of great help to him, Seong-il sends a fantasy dragon to Gaaz, who is the only one in the party who is holding out, and beats him up.
“Kuh…!!”
Even though Gaaz uses all kinds of powerful magic and secret arts, he fails to withstand the dragon’s attack, which is a mixture of the two Ethereal Stones containing the essence of the universe and the power of the bright sea.
Even when Seong-il attacks with his surplus strength in the middle, using psychokinesis and even shadow demons, Gaaz, a renowned enforcer of Ta-Jarran, can’t stand it and falls to his knees.
‘Hmm… Gaaz… Is hiding his power. Maybe it’s obvious…?’
Seong-il feels that Gaaz has yet to use his true power, even though he has brought him to his knees.
‘What… The true power of the other-Zaran comes from ‘resentment’… I guess I couldn’t use my true power against that fantasy dragon.’
‘In addition, Ta-Zarran’s fighting style is specialized in life and death, so they can only demonstrate their true skills by risking their lives…’
Despite the fact that the famous Ta-Zarran enforcer fell in vain, Seong-il, who knows their true skills and history, never disrespects him.
“Everyone has worked hard. After a while, I will give you a memory stone that looks at this battle from the third person’s perspective, so look at it and figure out your weaknesses. I will do the rest tomorrow.”
“Keep… It’s the first time!! It’s the first time!! If I do it one more time…”
As if he was quite angry, Bruno forgot his face and tried to argue with his bloody face.
“No. It’ll be noon in a little while, and it’s time for the Ghost Warhorse to regenerate!
“Okay…”
“Don’t forget that our purpose is not to train, but to subdue the red dragon. While the warhorse is there, let’s take a rest such as sleeping in the wagon’s resting room, and when the warhorse is reverse summoned, let’s train like before.”
“Haa… I see.”
Upon hearing Seongil’s reasonable words, Bruno nodded his head with a regretful expression, perhaps at a loss for words.
After persuading his colleagues, Seong-il takes them to the break room and teaches them how to wash.
The party cleans their bodies to relieve their mood, and then returns to the wagon again with Seongil, bringing drinks and snacks.
“Wow… I thought I’d be sleeping in a carriage, but I thought I’d even take a shower. It’s the most luxurious trip I’ve ever taken!!”
Senna quickly throws away her feelings of defeat and shows a cheerful appearance. Seong-il strokes her hair lightly, and then she gives everyone her memory orb, which contains the record of the previous battle.
“As I said before, everyone, do a revival. Especially Ban and Bruno. Please be aware that you are the most important part of our party.”
“Hmm…”
“It seems that you don’t know exactly what your skills are because you’ve just received power from your god, so you guys have to put in the most effort.”
“…”
Bruno was proud of himself as a warrior and as a combat priest. However, even though Seong-il is making noises that scratch his confidence, he doesn’t really refute it.
“Ban. The two of us are training hard.”
“Yes, Bruno.”
The two crusaders leave with a firm expression holding the memory beads Seong-il gave them. Seong-il sighs lightly at the positive appearance and lies down on the sofa to take a rest.
‘Huh… But it’s fortunate that the party’s attitude is positive.’
After looking at the departed colleagues for a while, Seong-il closes his eyes and savors the deep afterglow of the bright sky alone.
***
“Ugh… I think I’m going to die…”
Two days later at noon. Senna lays down in the rest room of the ghost carriage with an expression that looks like she’s about to vomit.
“Keep it off… It’s so hard on the subject of keeping things in check behind the scenes. Come here. I’ll give you a blessing.”
“Wow!!”
On the fourth day after the trip, the party rested comfortably in Edward’s wagon during the day until night, and on the night when the ghost warhorse was to be summoned, they were fiercely training in the inner plane on the holy day.
‘I didn’t expect that my skills would improve so much in just a few days.’
And Seong-il, who is resting on the floor of the break room, admires his peers at a tremendous rate of growth.
‘Come to think of it, I think we’ll arrive at Filinore Goseong tomorrow…?’
As we prepare, we are on the verge of reaching our destination. Seong-il is confident that the tactics of himself and his teammates will work against the dragon.
Thanks to a much more relaxed mind, the head turns well. Because of this, an event comes to Seongil’s head.
‘Ah…!! When you arrive at Filinore Goseong, there is one event that can never be avoided, right? The starting point of Paladin’s fall…’
An event related to the Paladin’s corruption that cannot be ‘absolutely’ avoided in principle. However, Seong-il has the power to twist fate and wonders what would happen if he intervened in the event.
‘Hmm… Originally… It was impossible to evade no matter what I did, but what would happen if I used this and cheated…?’
So Seong-il took out the artifact 『Ethereal Stone of Spirit』 From his inventory and looked at it.
