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Chapter 288

There was no word from the dispatched Under-Elf Rangers. Instead, someone else visited the Grand Labyrinth first.

“Milord.” Mimir, who had left the Grand Labyrinth not long ago, returned relatively soon, his expression looking as weary as ever.

“Did you leave something behind?” Kim Jin-Woo could clearly guess why Mimir had returned, but he pretended to be unaware.

Seeing his reaction, Mimir looked back at Kim Jin-Woo with a conflicted expression. After Twilight, he had barely managed to fill up the once-empty Eternal Treasury, but now that his master was feigning ignorance, the imp couldn’t help but find himself speechless.

Moreover, in return, the imp had been deprived of his comfortable home and driven out into the perilous Underworld. It was completely understandable that Mimir would feel upset at the turn of events.

Kim Jin-Woo couldn’t read the imp’s mind, but if he could, he could be certain that the imp was cursing him at that very moment.

“Urgh. It looks like the situation has gotten complicated. That’s why I’m here to entrust myself to Milord,” Mimir said. It seemed the situation was rather urgent. It was very rare for Mimir, who liked to beat about the bush, to be so straightforward.

“Situation? What situation?” Kim Jin-Woo asked casually, still acting naturally and pretending to not know anything.

“My base has been left exposed to the Underworld. As I have many nuanced relationships in the Underworld, I would like to seek refuge under Milord’s grace,” Mimir said. He was like a thirsty man digging a well for himself. In the end, he had no choice but to bow down and lean on Kim Jin-Woo’s generosity.

In retrospect, it seemed as if Kim Jin-Woo was the one who had exposed the Black Merchants to the Underworld, but the truth was, Mimir was the one who had caused it all in the first place.

Even if it were Kim Jin-Woo’s fault, what right did Mimir have to tell the true owner of the Treasury where to relocate it? In the Underworld where strength and power was all that mattered, Kim Jin-Woo was the stronger of the two, and thus Mimir knew he lacked the grounds to argue against Kim Jin-Woo’s wishes.

“Hmm.” Despite having heard Mimir’s request, Kim Jin-Woo didn’t readily answer.

However, it was Angela who responded in his stead. “I don’t know how you have the guts to come here like this when you’re so rotten to the core.” She criticized Mimir’s past, when he had been sneaky behind the scenes without her master’s knowledge.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the past, but ultimately, I feel the end justified the means, considering how great the payoff was. If it weren’t for me, Milord could never have ascended so quickly…” Mimir began.

“Shut the fuck up.” Angela’s shrill voice rang out in that instant, silencing the entire room. “If Master weren’t here right now, I would have torn your wretched body to pieces and scattered it all across the Underworld.”

Mimir looked bewildered by her outrageous remark. After having her identity taken away by Iron-Blooded Anatolius, Angela seemed to have focused on taking great care of herself.

“Never call Master ‘Milord’ ever again. Since when did a servant ever call his own master ‘Milord’? You play the part as his servant, and yet you’re so shameless about it,” Angela continued. As she extended her long black nails, her presence rose so fiercely that Mimir bit his lips in fear.

“Because of that filthy snout of yours, the other Highlords also refer to him as a Lord. If you truly want to entrust your body to Master, you’ll have to change the way you address him first.” Angela glared fiercely at the imp. However, she saw her master’s expression and backed away.

“We’ll become one family in the future, so there’s no need for you to be too worked up about this,” Kim Jin-Woo said.

“Mi… Master!” The color returned to Mimir’s face in an instant. However, that moment of joy was brief as the imp listened to Kim Jin-Woo’s subsequent statement.

“But that doesn’t mean what she said was wrong. You gain some, you lose some. You want to live from here on out by relying on my generosity, but it seems that while you’ve continued to speak of the past, you’ve forgotten your place in the present.” Kim Jin-Woo’s voice grew colder the more he continued to talk, and at the end of it, every word felt as cold as ice water.

“Is the situation so urgent your brain has ceased to function? You don’t seem to understand what I’m saying,” he eventually said.

“Sorry? What do you…” Mimir responded as if he weren’t aware of what Kim Jin-Woo meant.

Kim Jin-Woo responded coldly, “What you need to do now isn’t to run that mouth of yours, but to get on your knees and beg for mercy.”

He knew Mimir would continue to try to get one over him if he were left alone and not put in his place. Besides, it wasn’t the first time the imp had fooled around with his tricks behind the scenes. Thus, Kim Jin-Woo decided to correct the imp’s bad habits once and for all, right then and there.

“Kneel. And beg.” Kim Jin-Woo determinedly forced Mimir to obey him. He continued arrogantly “Only then will I consider extending those pathetic lives of yours and the Black Merchants just a little longer.”

Mimir showed no signs of hesitation. He must have expected such a situation to eventually unfold when making this visit, so there should have been no more reason for him to hesitate in the first place.

“Master.” Mimir knelt down and bowed his round head deeply until it almost touched the ground, and called Kim Jin-Woo ‘master’ for the first time. “Please, accept this useless servant. Allow this humble life to once again protect Master’s treasury, and allow this clan of servants to be of servitude to Master.”

Crack. Crack.

He seemed to have understood that his recent conduct hadn’t been good, as he cracked his head on the ground repeatedly until blood started flowing down his forehead.

When Kim Jin-Woo finally accepted his request, Mimir hurriedly left to relocate the Black Merchants and his assets.

“How far do you think we can trust him?” Morrigan asked.

All of the summons, including Morrigan, stated they couldn’t trust Mimir and begged their master to reconsider.

“I don’t trust Mimir either. I’d rather work with the Deep Floor Nobles than fully trust that cunning imp,” Kim Jin-Woo replied.

“Then why did you accept him? If you keep someone like him close to you, bad things will likely happen.” Morrigan asked him with a look of incomprehension on her face.

Meanwhile, Angela looked carefully at her master to understand his intentions and asked, “Don’t tell me you’re keeping him close to you because you don’t trust him?”

Kim Jin-Woo laughed. He replied, “It may seem like that, but the truth is, with Mimir nowhere else to go, I had to avoid letting him go to the Immoral Lord instead.”

“If that’s your concern, wouldn’t killing him here on the spot have been a better choice?” Morrigan asked.

All of the summons must have been incredibly upset at Mimir, as none of them stood up for the imp.

“Don’t worry. Mimir’s punishment has already been decided. It’s just that he remains useful, so the punishment is simply being delayed,” Kim Jin-Woo remarked.

Just because the water in a boiling pot was cold didn’t mean the pot itself wasn’t hot.[1]

Poor Mimir was unaware that his time was ticking, and that he had effectively surrendered himself to a burning anger that had been kept disguised from him.

“His day of judgment isn’t far off,” Kim Jin-Woo said.

The ever-accelerating transformation of the Underworld was approaching its climax. The day of the Restoration would come no matter how much Kim Jin-Woo attempted to block it, and when that day came, he would overturn the plans of all those who had deceived him and punish them all.

The cunning imp, who had stabbed him in the back over and over again, would also share their fate.

“Kurgh.”

Seeing their master’s grin, the summons gasped as they were once again reminded of how tenacious he could be.

While Mimir was gone, the Under-Elf Rangers returned. They all reported that the Underworld had expanded infinitely more than before.

“The Underworld’s vastness is incomparable to how it was previously, so it appears to be impossible to scout all the new areas in the short term. If you give us more time, we’ll definitely complete the scouting expedition,” Rikshasha reported.

Kim Jin-Woo thought deeply. He wondered if the Underworld, which had just been one single realm, had completely returned to how it was in the past, when it wasn’t divided into layers. But at that moment, he couldn’t tell just how much the Underworld had expanded.

Additionally, Rikshasha expressed concern that strange creatures they had never seen before were now all over the Underworld. She said, “There were seven-headed hydras, giants with gleaming golden skin, creatures with the faces of goats, lions, and even old men. All of them looked so ferocious, we dared not approach them.”

She added that she had witnessed several labyrinths being attacked and destroyed by the monsters in just a single day. “Horrifically, they consumed the labyrinths themselves. They chewed on the summons as if they were grains of rice, and in the end, swallowed up the entirety of the labyrinths whole. With each labyrinth consumed, they became even bigger and more ferocious than before. It seems that if they’re left alone, they’ll grow to unspeakable levels of power.”

Perhaps some of the labyrinths that had fallen victim to these creatures were at the Duke-level, as the look on Rikshasha’s face was nothing short of terror.

“The fact that a Duke-level labyrinth couldn’t even survive for a day is pretty terrifying,” Kim Jin-Woo remarked.

He had once used the power of the Evil Dragon to attack the Ursus King and the Taurus King, but even then, it hadn’t been an easy feat. They’d had the dignity of rulers of the Deep Floors, and they had definitely proven that they were more than qualified to be Dukes. It was just that the matchup hadn’t been favorable toward them.

“It seems the ancient creatures the Ancient Lords once fought against have all awakened,” Dominique said. She looked serious, but she didn’t seem to be too concerned. “But no matter how ferocious those monsters may be, they’ll never take over this place. Valhǫll and the Grand Labyrinth are different from other labyrinths.”

The power of Mjöllnir crouching in the spire of Valhǫll was strong enough to completely change the surrounding terrain, and the Grand Labyrinth’s power of Gluttony would be able to devour countless enemies. Even if the ancient monsters had now awakened, Dominique was confident that their defenses wouldn’t be easily breached.

“I’m sure the circumstances facing the other labyrinths will be different from ours,” she added.

The only problem was that, if Rikshasha’s report was correct, the monsters were eating the labyrinths themselves; that meant that as time passed, the number of fragments of the ancient powers Kim Jin-Woo could absorb would decrease.

“Seems like there’s no easy answer.” Kim Jin-Woo frowned heavily.

There were limited resources he had to fight for, and now, mysterious monsters had appeared to contest them as well, so it was natural for him to feel uncomfortable about the new development. But there was an even bigger problem.

“If the Underworld has changed this much, it won’t be easy for Denarion to bring in the Wish Stone, even if it’s through Bryntess,” he continued.

The Queen of Corruption had promised to bring the Wish Stone to Kim Jin-Woo, but she was only a Count, and it was clear that she wouldn’t be able to withstand the monsters that had destroyed even Duke-class labyrinths within a single day. Thus, Kim Jin-Woo decided to use Mimir to find Bryntess.

“He may be easy to hate, but it was a good decision to keep him alive. As soon as Mimir returns, order him to find the Queen of Corruption,” he instructed.

“Yes, Master,” Angela replied.

Neither Kim Jin-Woo nor Angela even considered Bryntess’ consent. After all, they were Highlords – the apex of the Underworld. There was absolutely no reason for them to worry about a mere count.

But as always, their desired guests didn’t arrive, and only uninvited guests arrived instead.

Crash!

Kim Jin-Woo ran out of the labyrinth upon hearing a roar, and Mjöllnir howled as it had during his battle with the Heavenly Giant Lord.

“So, that’s the one,” he remarked.

Before him stood a monster as huge as the high walls of Valhǫll itself, wreaking havoc.

1. This is a Korean proverb. It basically means what’s coming is coming, even if it doesn’t seem that way. ☜