God-Tier Enhancement: My Upgrades Never Fail-Chapter 175: Episode 35_A Feint in the East, a Strike in the West (3)

Chapter 175: Episode 35_A Feint in the East, a Strike in the West (3)

5.

Han Simin’s order had been simple and clear.

“Just drag some monsters around, rough up the humans a bit, and then put on a show at the right spot.”

The sinister, sly intent packed into that one sentence was beyond imagination. Even Kardian, who had a history of betraying her own kind, betraying the continent, and joining hands with the demons, shuddered.

’Is this really okay?’ she wondered.

She hesitated, but what could she do? Her own hands were hardly clean. If anything, schemes like this were more her style. Her only complaint was that she wasn’t the mastermind, just an actress—and not even the lead, but a supporting character—in a human’s plot.

“Grrr...”

“Yelp!”

“ROAAR!”

“GRRRAH!”

In any case, she couldn’t refuse the order. And there was no such thing as “half-hearted” for a dragon.

Spending the mana she had painstakingly gathered, Kardian returned to her true form. While taking blows from monsters brazen enough to commit sacrilege, she kept a close eye on the humans’ movements. To make the scene more realistic, she had ordered the monsters to go all out. Her stinging body tempted her with every possible excuse to quit, but she decided that a few small cuts were far preferable to the human fury that would follow if she stopped.

“Let’s decide the order!”

“Order? If we provoke the dragon for no reason, we could all be wiped out!”

“Anyone can see it has no strength left to counterattack! You’re just trying to protect your ranking, aren’t you?”

“What? Who are you, some nobody I’ve never even heard of—”

While Kardian sighed, watching her scales get chipped away, the humans were busy arguing among themselves.

Exactly as Han Simin had predicted.

’He really is a wicked bastard.’

She shook her head and even threw in a groan for good measure. That naturally heightened the humans’ sense of urgency. One side was desperate to hunt her quickly; the other was desperate to stop them. Humans entangled in conflicting interests were worse than demons.

“Move!”

“Move? Are you insane?”

“So what if you’re a big guild! Let’s at least keep the Guild Selection Tournament fair!”

“Fair? Fair, huh. Sure. Let’s be fair.”

They drew their weapons and faced off. The atmosphere was so tense that a single pebble could have set it off. They were acting as if they were the dragon’s guardians, which was absurd, but despite the threat of dragon’s breath, the large guilds held their positions.

’Fine. Go ahead and fight.’

She signaled the monsters to go a little easier and was just about to sit back and enjoy the show when—

“Just a moment!”

Kenji stepped forward at the height of the drama. He stood right in the middle of the taut rope stretched between the two opposing sides.

Of course, no one looked particularly surprised or tense. Among players, Kenji was famous, rich, high-level, and backed by a powerful guild. But to those who actually held the continent in their hands, he was nothing more than a fledgling chick—something they could crush underfoot at any time.

An adventurer who resurrected infinitely? The more you killed them, the weaker they became. That weakness allowed for a fate worse than death.

“What is it, you vulgar little adventurer?”

Scorn poured down on him from all sides. Even so, Kenji didn’t flinch.

He had staked everything on this. He had given up on attacking Han Simin to come here, and if he failed to kill the dragon, his ranking would be overturned. Even then, he would still be the number two player guild, but if you weren’t number one, it meant nothing. That was true in Fantastic World as well.

He had to gamble.

Having made up his mind, Kenji spoke.

“I may be nothing more than the leader of a lowly adventurer guild, and even maintaining our current position in the Selection Tournament is a struggle, let alone climbing higher. No! Even if we do not climb any higher, I can proudly say that this Guild Selection Tournament has been more than fruitful; I have gained everything I wanted and more. But that is that, and this dragon must be slain.”

The crowd was confused.

“Just now, His Imperial Majesty’s son-in-law sent me a message through an adventurer-only channel. He told me that the true reason His Majesty set the Black Dragon as the objective of this Guild Selection Tournament was not the stability of the continent, but the Dragon Heart and its scales!”

The crowd gasped.

A shocking statement! The entire field grew restless.

“Is that true?!”

“How could I lie in a place like this?”

His brazen lie, delivered without a hint of wavering, caused the great guilds to stir. If what he said was true, then this was a very serious matter.

“A dragon raid, is it...”

First place in the Guild Selection Tournament. It was important. Undeniably important. The victor would take everything and secure a springboard to stay ahead for years to come.

But what if that victory came at the cost of thwarting the ending the Emperor desired? In the end, everything was provided by the Emperor. All benefits could be reclaimed with a single word from him.

The crowd fell silent.

“Either way, Dragon Raid scores are calculated based on contribution, are they not? Even if we were to coordinate the finishing blow as you wish, we can’t simply abandon the raid itself. If the Emperor were to learn that we colluded to ignore a threat to the continent...”

The group fell into a heavy silence.

The masters of the great guilds went rigid.

If that happened, it would be over.

Great guilds, decades of history—none of it would matter. A single word from the Emperor, and they would all be destroyed.

And with a plausible justification like treason, it would be all too easy for him.

Treason.

Recalling the hell the continent had endured centuries ago, they couldn’t even begin to imagine the punishment reserved for traitors.

“Ahem. Then perhaps we should kill that thing first and discuss the rest later.”

“We are merely trying to prevent needless casualties...”

Half of the guilds that had been in a standoff turned their backs on their rivals.

In effect, the guilds that were still intact—or rather, practically every guild participating in the Selection Tournament—were now turning their eyes on Kardian.

Kardian tilted her head in confusion.

In that instant, Kardian sensed it.

’Something is wrong.’

Her instincts screamed, and she unfurled her wings.

“Graaaar!”

The clueless monsters clinging to her wings didn’t think to let go as they spread open; instead, they sank their teeth in even deeper.

’Have these bastards lost their minds?’

She might have no mana, but physically, she was still a dragon.

She thrashed violently, flinging most of them off.

When she beat her wings again, a dull ache radiated from the wounds.

’Just how much did they chew on me?’

She didn’t even have the strength left to endure the pain.

If those humans attacked her in this state, she might actually be in mortal danger.

The true reason dragons were terrifying wasn’t just their physical toughness. It was their dominion over the skies—a realm most living things could never reach—and their sovereignty over virtually limitless magic.

With her two greatest advantages sealed, she was nothing more than a particularly sturdy lizard.

FLAP.

To get away quickly, to at least get off the ground, she took to the air.

Or she tried to.

“She’s taking off! Stop her!”

Before she could gain any altitude, all manner of curse spells slammed into her wings.

She gritted her teeth in silence.

Her powerful wingbeats turned into feeble flapping.

Kardian’s eyes burned with humiliation.

HIC.

Something had gone terribly wrong.

* * *

By the time Han Simin arrived, Kardian was getting beaten far worse than he had expected.

He didn’t need to ask what had happened; he had already seen it all on the stream.

“That guy’s a complete psycho. He’s name-dropping the Emperor?”

“I don’t think you’re one to talk, Simin.”

“Me? I’m the Emperor’s son-in-law. I’m close enough that I can drop his name a bit. But that bastard? Who is he?”

Strictly speaking, Kenji wasn’t trading on the Emperor’s name; he was trading on Han Simin’s.

He was claiming to relay the Emperor’s true intentions, as told to him by the Emperor’s son-in-law.

In both cases, the Emperor’s name was being used, but the impression they gave was completely different.

From Kenji’s perspective, invoking the Emperor directly would have been a situation he could never hope to clean up. But invoking Han Simin? He could see a way through that.

It was just as Simin had said: if Kenji had used the Emperor’s name outright, with no personal connection, he would have been dragged away without a chance to say a single word and subjected to infinite deaths.

But Han Simin was different.

Han Simin could be bought.

’Shoot first, deal with the fallout later.’

Given everything he had seen of the relationship between Han Simin and the Emperor, Kenji must have judged that Han Simin would be able to handle the aftermath.

There was, however, one crucial problem with his plan.

Han Simin himself.

’I wonder how much he thinks I’m going to charge him for this.’

Kenji had just handed him a position beyond master and servant, beyond any normal power imbalance—he had made him a super subordinate.

Han Simin could only be impressed.

Whatever number Kenji had in mind, he was clearly prepared to pay any amount that a normal, average person could possibly conceive.

Or he believed he could haggle it down.

Rather than anger, Han Simin felt a flicker of intrigue.

There was no doubt about it: Kenji was out of his mind, too.

“Simin, but... is it really okay to just leave her like that?”

“She’s a dragon. She’s not going to get beaten to death.”

“She looks like she’s in danger, though.”

More than anything, Kang Yeseul was worried about Kardian.

Seen from high above, from the detached vantage point of a third party, Kardian was a pitiful sight.

Despite her massive size, she was being buried under every debuff, spell, and attack imaginable.

She roared and killed the players who rushed her, but her efficiency dropped with every passing moment.

Her physical attacks were slowing and weakening, and the guilds gathered here were not so fragile that they would die to that.

On top of that, as the “Dragon Slayer” title slowly came into view, their morale soared.

The hope of achieving an impossible feat was a potent drug, making their exhausted bodies forget their fatigue.

“Graaaarrr!”

Tears began to mix with Kardian’s roars of fury.

’Save me! Damn it all, this is what I get for running into one cursed human.’

Hearing that cry, Han Simin pushed himself up from where he had been lying down.

“At this point, she should be nicely broken in.”

He stared blankly for a moment.

Muttering something a demon lord might say, he loosened up his body.

“Hey. Squeaker. You’d better pull this off cleanly. You’re not going to just let your mom die, are you?”

“Ppaeaaek!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

He gave one last reminder, then jumped from the sky.

At the same time, the ore in his hand began to glow.

“Dian, your big bro is here!”

There was exactly one reason he had sat back and watched Kardian get beaten so senselessly.

“You’re all dead.”

He swung his hammer in midair, his intent clear.

’The Earthquake Rune and the Divine Punishment Rune.’

’No—I won’t even be greedy. Just give me Earthquake.’

Up to now, he had gotten the Earthquake Rune at a pretty decent rate.

Thanks to that, his ranking had climbed significantly.

He had no doubt it would be the same this time.

And even if it wasn’t Earthquake, that was fine.

As long as he got something that would let him rampage through that pack of lunatics, anything would do!

[You are under the effect of Rune: Regeneration for 300 seconds.]

[During this time, HP and MP recovery speed increase by 5,000%.]

[You are under the effect of Rune: Transcendence for 300 seconds.]

[During this time, all skill cooldowns are reduced by 80%.]

[The two runes have fused. You are now under the effect of Special Rune: Absolute Invincibility.]

...Huh?

The hand swinging the hammer froze in mid-swing.

His body, which had been plummeting from high in the sky toward the tiny, ant-like players below, kept falling, but he couldn’t bring himself to dismiss the hologram.

He read it again. And again.

Nothing changed.

The overwhelming power flooding his body didn’t change.

The strange light seeping into his hammer didn’t change.

He just felt... absurdly refreshed.

He felt like he would live even if he got hit, and live again even if he died.

’Wait... do I even have skills?’

He checked.

For the first time in a long while, he looked over the skills he possessed.

Naturally, there wasn’t a single offensive skill worth using.

He was speechless.

The two most useless runes possible for this situation had shown up.

The moment he had that thought, his body slammed into the ground.

BOOM!

The impact was strong enough to make the surrounding guilds flinch back in surprise.

He was too mentally shocked to even think about rolling with the fall.

His HP bar, which had been scraped nearly empty in an instant, shot back up to full before he even had time to be startled.

He blinked in disbelief.

’So this is what it feels like.’

He didn’t even have a moment to marvel at the new rune’s effect.

“Simin?”

“Hey.”

His eyes met Kenji’s.

“The dragon is on its last legs! Everyone, full assault!”

“Hey, you son of a bitch! I’m the Emperor’s son-in-law!”

“...Attack!”

Their one-second conversation and eye contact were instantly erased from Kenji’s mind.

And before Han Simin could even voice his outrage, every spell imaginable came flying at him.

KRA-KRA-KRA-KRA-BOOM!

“Gyaaaah!”

’So this is how Kardian felt getting ganged up on.’

The attacks rained down on him like a mob beating a dog on a hot summer day.

And the grand plan Han Simin had of dropping down with a rune buff and wiping everyone out was torn to shreds.

He was left a tattered mess.