Dragonslayer’s Class Regression Chapter 144

Chapter 144

After hearing the 7th Unit commander’s words, Zeke nodded.

“That’s a good start. Keep going. Who told you about the holy relic being here?”

The commander trembled as he spoke.

“Not, not exactly sure… but… it, it came from the Draker side…”

“Hmm. Draker.”

“I’m, I’m not certain! I, I just heard it from a source …”

Zeke and Boris took time to interrogate both the 7th Unit commander and his members to cross-reference information.

Zeke looked through the recorded information and said.

“So the Abyss people came here too?”

The commander nodded with an exhausted voice.

“Yes… that’s right.”

“Do you know which demon’s followers they are?”

“I, I don’t know that much.”

“Tell me any other information, anything.”

The 7th Unit commander rolled his eyes around before finally speaking.

“Gr, green…”

“Green?”

“They were people who always wore green clothes.”

“Green, huh.”

While the Hermit of Stories would have known which demon’s followers they were just from that, it was beyond Zeke.

‘They seem to worship a different demon than the Herald of Blood and Madness or the Lord of the Lowest Place.’

Since he didn’t know how many demons and followers existed yet, he always had to be careful when dealing with the Abyss.

After gathering all the information, Zeke gave death to the 7th Unit and disposed of the corpses with the power of decay.

Zeke said to Boris.

“The information from the 8th and 7th Units seems to match almost perfectly.”

“Yes. Shall we verify with the 9th Unit as well?”

“That won’t be necessary. Better to just dispose of them.”

“Understood.”

Zeke and Boris erased all traces and headed out toward Death Valley.

The 9th Unit, which had entered Death Valley most cautiously, was approaching the cave looking for traces of the 7th Unit.

Zeke and Boris split up on both sides, waited in advance, and activated the prepared trap.

BOOM!

As the magic bomb exploded, piles of rocks collapsed in the narrow canyon.

Then the 9th Unit commander hurriedly summoned something.

WHOOSH!

Three giant black scorpions emerged from the ground.

They seemed to be chimeras created with dark magic.

The black scorpions knocked aside the falling rocks.

Behind the black scorpions, the dark mage prepared spells in anticipation of an attack.

Then the commander shouted at the black scorpions.

“Catch them!”

Two of the black scorpions quickly crawled up toward where Zeke was.

Zeke drew Bahamut and swung his sword at the black scorpion charging at him.

SLASH!

The black scorpion’s shell, harder than steel plate, was cut clean through.

KEEEEEK!

The black scorpion writhed in pain and brought down its tail with its sharp poisoned stinger aimed at Zeke.

But Zeke wasn’t one to fall to such an attack.

SWOOSH!

After cutting off the tail with his sword, Zeke jumped into the air and thrust his sword straight into the black scorpion’s head.

CRUNCH!

Bahamut pierced through the hard shell.

The black scorpion went limp.

The other black scorpion also charged at Zeke.

But the result was the same.

The black scorpion whose head was struck by Zeke’s thrown dagger died instantly and likewise went limp.

Seeing Zeke dispose of two black scorpions in an instant, the 9th Unit commander realized this wasn’t an opponent he could handle.

“Damn it! Use smoke bombs! We’re getting out of here right now!”

The dark mages took smoke bombs from their chests and threw them around.

They tried to escape under the cover of obscured vision.

But smoke bombs were useless against Zeke with his dragon eyes.

Zeke entered the smoke and literally slaughtered the dark mages.

“ARGHHHH!”

The surging aura blade mercilessly cut throats and limbs of the dark mages.

The dark mages lucky enough to escape met their death by Boris’s sword waiting behind.

Soon when the smoke cleared, the corpses of dead mages could be seen strewn across the canyon floor.

“That was easier than expected.”

If the dark mages had resisted head-on instead of trying to escape, it would have taken longer to deal with them, but since they set off smoke in a narrow place, it was easy for Zeke to handle.

Zeke gathered the dark mages’ corpses and disposed of them with the power of decay, and from the dead black scorpions, he kept only the materials needed for item crafting and devoured the rest with gluttony.

Boris approached Zeke.

““Boss, it seems that the Scorpion Clan side is taken care of.”

“Good. It’ll be dark soon. Death Valley gets very cold at night, so let’s go back to the cave.”

* * *

Zeke and Boris returned to the cave and prepared camp.

After eating tough jerky, they laid alarm devices in front of the cave to guard against intruders.

There was no need for separate night watch since Zeke had summoned dragon knights outside.

Boris, who was warming himself by the magic furnace Zeke took out from his inventory, suddenly spoke.

“Boss.”

Boris asked Zeke.

“Why did you spare me back then in Delpoa?”

Zeke, who had been looking at the furnace flames, turned his head to look at Boris.

“Did you wish to die?”

“It’s not that….”

Zeke chuckled lightly and spoke.

“I just thought it would be useful to keep you alive. There’s no other reason.”

“Have you ever thought that I might betray you?”

At those words, Zeke shook his head and responded.

“No, quite the opposite. I think anyone can betray anyone.”

At that moment, Zeke’s gaze sharply changed.

“Not just you, Boris, but even Kei, Feinan, or anyone else. Anyone can betray you. People are not constant.”

Boris felt a chill run down his spine as he looked into Zeke’s eyes.

‘What kind of life has this person lived? Is it because he’s a Draker?’

The look in Zeke’s eyes was not one that seemed to belong to someone who appeared to be eighteen years old.

At that moment, Zeke spoke again.

“By the way, about betrayal… I’ve really wondered if there might be a traitor.”

“Pardon? What do you mean?”

“Abel knew exactly that I was coming to the desert to find the holy relics and leaked information to the Holy Kingdom, the Scorpion Clan, and Salmak.”

“Wouldn’t they have moved quickly after seeing the boss moving?”

“No, Abel didn’t know I was searching for the relics. I had hidden my identity while fighting the minions.”

Zeke continued.

“Even when I smuggled Carus or attacked the Hounds camp, Abel must have figured it out that it was me.”

At these words, Boris broke out in a cold sweat and shook his head.

“B-boss. I swear, it wasn’t me. P-please believe me.”

Boris knew just how cruel Zeke could become when he made up his mind, and he trembled in fear.

Zeke, looking at Boris, said:

“I didn’t suspect you, Boris, but based on the circumstances, it didn’t seem like you were the one leaking information.”

“That’s right. Anyway, without the boss, I have nowhere to go.”

Boris, who came from the 13th office of the Imperial Intelligence Bureau, knew that only Zeke, the true ruler of the Syndicate and a pure-blood Draker, could clean his background.

Zeke looked at Boris and spoke.

“We’ll have to investigate whether there really is a traitor or if Abel used some other trick. Once this is over, Boris, you’ll have a lot to do.”

“Me?”

“I didn’t hire those Salmak guys for no reason. Sometimes, when looking for a traitor, it’s better to use reliable external help.”

“You’re planning to use Salmak’s assassins to find the traitor?”

“If there really is one.”

Zeke was keeping both possibilities in mind: one where there was indeed a traitor and the other where Abel might have used the Abyss’s strange magic to steal information.

If there was no traitor, but they broke the trust within the organization by trying to find one, it would play right into Abel’s hands.

Since the organization was hastily formed, trust between the members was fragile. If broken, it would be irreversible.

Zeke thought Abel might have aimed for that. Fortunately, Zeke, who had lived in cartels, found identifying traitors as natural as breathing.

In a cartel, yesterday’s friend or a family member could become a traitor the next day, so one had to always stay alert.

Despite the trust Zeke gave Boris, the fear of betrayal still lingered in Boris’s heart.

‘Betrayal… I must never do it.’

To Boris, Zeke felt even more terrifying than the Imperial Emperor.

***

While Boris fell asleep, Zeke opened the shop category .

―Shop―

Buy / Sell Items
Disassemble / Repair Items
Enhance Items
Craft Items
Zeke first placed the items he had taken from the dark mages into his inventory and entered the ‘Disassemble / Repair’ section.

When he moved the items into the disassembly window, the materials automatically separated.

For artifacts, the runes that held the magic were also revealed.

‘Oh, so this is how the magic on an artifact gets dispelled.’

Zeke continued with item crafting using the disassembled materials and the byproducts of the black scorpions he had gathered during battle.

‘Let’s see what I can make from the black scorpion byproducts. Ah, here it is. I’ll try to make a simple shield.’

Zeke transferred the necessary materials from his inventory to the crafting window according to the list.

‘The black scorpion’s exoskeleton, the tail part, iron ingots… and leather.’

After placing the most important materials, the scorpion tail shell and other necessary items, he started the crafting process.

Then, a window appeared showing the crafting progress, and the numbers began to increase one by one.

‘It will take about two hours to complete.’

Zeke was amazed, just as he had been when crafting potions. It was fascinating how, by gathering the materials and following the system’s process, items were automatically crafted.

It seemed to be the method of crafting using Karma, as mentioned by the Hermit of stories

When making potions, Karma points weren’t required, but for weapons and equipment, a small amount of Karma points were needed.

Even so, it was still about ten times cheaper than buying equipment in the shop, making it much more efficient to craft items by gathering materials.

After two hours, the completion rate reached 100%.

[‘Tough Black Scorpion Exoskeleton Shield’ has been completed.]

The shield was now created in Zeke’s inventory.

“This is my first time making weapons, but it’s amazing.”

Zeke took out the shield made from the black scorpion’s exoskeleton.

It was quite large, larger than he had expected.

However, it wasn’t as heavy as its size would suggest.

Looking at its shape, the black scorpion’s shell was processed with metal around the edges and leather finishing on the inside.

It was designed to be both handheld and worn on the arm.

Zeke checked the shield’s information with his dragon eyes.

―Shield Information―

Description: A shield made from the hardest shell of a black scorpion

Unique Ability: None

Special Feature: When the device inside the shield is turned, the black scorpion’s poison stinger protrudes from the bottom. Scorpion poison is automatically generated inside.

Zeke turned the device inside as described in the special features.

CHING!

A stinger resembling a scorpion’s tail protruded from the bottom of the shield.

“I could stab enemies with this too.”

With the automatic generation of black scorpion poison, it had value beyond just being a shield.

Suddenly remembering the rune he got earlier, Zeke opened the enhancement window and tried enhancing the shield by putting both the shield and rune in.

[Applying ‘Curse of Health Deterioration’ rune to enhance ‘Hard Black Scorpion Shell Shield’.]

Soon the enhancement completed and a new information window appeared.

―Shield Information―

Description: A shield made from the hardest shell of a black scorpion

Unique Ability: Enemies hit by the shield have a 20% chance of being inflicted with the curse of health deterioration

Special Feature: When the device inside the shield is turned, the black scorpion’s poison stinger protrudes from the bottom. Scorpion poison is automatically generated inside.

Zeke’s jaw dropped at the information window.

“This is huge. It means I can turn normal items into artifacts if I have runes.”

The value of magical artifacts is enormous.

It takes high-level mages, magical craftsmen, and alchemists to barely enchant weapons.

The higher the level of magic, the harder it was to make artifacts.

It wasn’t for nothing that Lubern, who could create holy weapons with light magic, was able to unify the continent and establish the Holy Empire.

Zeke swung the enhanced shield around with a satisfied expression.

“With enough materials, I could arm the entire Black Sword Knights with artifacts.”

Just as Zeke was feeling satisfied with the crafting and enhancement functions.

A dragon warrior on patrol sent a signal indicating it discovered something.