Chapter 14: Do it if you can (5)
Translator: miraclerifle
Bang!
Ju-Heon’s strong dominance suppressed the dagger. The dagger than screeched in pain.
[You human bastard!]
The artifact's voice that other people could not hear reached Ju-Heon’s ears.
However, it was only for a moment before the artifact stopped baring its fangs and submitted. The red aura that had surrounded it slowly disappeared as well.
Before long, the dagger's movements that had been loudly roaring completely stopped.
‘It stopped.’
Information from the spy skill soon appeared above the dagger.
[Muramasa’s slightly failed dagger (C-Grade:General-Grade/Consumable Artifact)]
- Remaining Uses (862/1000)
Ju-Heon laughed as a read that.
A pitiful C-Grade artifact had tried to resist his dominance.
‘Looks like this is one of the lower versions of Muramasa.’
Muramasa was originally like a brand name for blades. Naturally, that meant that there were many artifacts with the Muramasa name. According to his memories, there should be some C-Grade(General-grade) to A-Grade(Legend-Grade) Muramasas.
There were many factors that determined an artifact’s grade level, however, it would be easiest to consider this Muramasa as a lackey artifact to the one that created this tomb.
That was why Ju-Heon scrunched his eyes.
‘I need to go in farther to find the boss artifact that created this tomb.’
It was at that moment.
“Kyaaaa!”
The female student who had been controlled suddenly screamed. The student had returned to her senses after the artifact submitted to Ju-Heon, however, a different issue had happened.
It was because of the rope that had become excited about tying a person up.
“P, please save me! The rope........!”
The female student was shaking as if a snake was crawling up her body. The rope that had been binding the student was moving and changing to a different shape.
That shape was quite suspicious.
Ju-Heon had no choice but to click his tongue and grab the rope.
‘It’s too excited, way too excited.’
These damn artifacts always cause issues if you looked away from them.
“Return!”
The rope could not do anything and started to glow as Ju-Heon ordered while channeling his dominance. The rope quickly shrunk in size before wrapping around Ju-Heon’s wrist once again.
The artifact had changed appearance once the light disappeared. It didn’t look as shabby as it did when Abe had it on him. It now looked like a fashionable copper-colored male braided bracelet.
“Ah......”
The people could only blankly look at it. This situation was one thing, but they were shocked to see a rope turning into a bracelet.
The first to speak was the female student who had been controlled.
“......J, just what happened?”
Ju-Heon smiled after hearing that question.
He had used his dominance to change the shape of the artifact.
In simple terms, it was using camouflage.
This was how he had camouflaged the gold axe silver axe artifact as well.
Of course, this was not easy to do.
Although Ju-Heon didn’t care about what the artifacts thought, he knew that they found it shameful to camouflage themselves like modern items.
‘I don't know whether they have pride in their original appearances or are angry at having to submit to a human.’
Forget changing their appearance, artifacts would try to gobble up any master without significant dominance who tried to make them do something like this.
Ju-Heon started to walk while smiling.
He needed to take care of that Japanese bastard now.
“I really must be a genius! Hahaha!”
Abe was laughing out loud.
Abe had arrived at the room with Muramasa after tricking the civilians into the trap. This tomb was a cave-style tomb, and the dirt ground was filled with weapon debris.
Abe was planning on finding Muramasa here before killing all witnesses.
‘It’s a perfect crime if they all die inside the tomb!
The stupid Korean government will treat it as an accident if they all die in here!’
The only thing important to him was Japan’s benefit.
‘Japan can become the greatest as long as we have Prince Shotoku's Future Diary’
The US was nothing! China was nothing!
Multiple large earthquakes, economic recession... His home that had been the sun of Asia at one point was slowly turning into a nation where the sun was setting as well.
In that aspect, artifacts were a chance!
For Abe who grew up listening to the heroic tales of the Japanese people found his work to be a cornerstone of such heroic deeds in present times.
That was why he was going crazy about the current situation.
“Fuck, where the hell is Muramasa hiding?!”
Clang, clang.
Clang!
Abe was handling the weapons in a rough way and throwing them to the side.
“That thug better have told me the right thing!”
Abe was trying to find Muramasa according to the prophecy. The fourth room after passing through the tomb’s trap.
She had said Muramasa would be in that room!
However, he could not find it no matter how hard he tried.
But at that moment...
“You damn bastard, we got you now!”
Abe started to scream as a horde of people charged into the room.
“W, what the hell, you bastards!”
“You son of a bitch, you dare to trick us? You tried to kill us all!”
The angry mob tried to kill Abe as soon as they saw him. In the end, Abe fell on his ass.
He was certain.
These were the civilians he had pushed into the trap.
‘How did these bastards get out?!’
The people who got out of the trap thanks to Ju-Heon grabbed onto Abe as soon as they found him, although it was not certain whether Ju-Heon had asked them to do that or they were doing it of their own volition.
“We need to inform the whole world and get this bastard buried!”
Even though Abe was a soldier, there was no way he could deal with such large numbers without a weapon.
“Damn it!”
Abe who was captured by them was angry.
“How did these bastards get out of the trap?!”
He had confirmed that the trap was something they could not get out of without an artifact.
It was at that moment.
“How else would they have gotten out?”
Abe gasped and turned his head after hearing a familiar voice. The shocked Abe could see a familiar young man sitting on top of a pile of swords.
It was Ju-Heon.
Abe's eyes opened wide after seeing Ju-Heon.
“You!”
Ju-Heon smiled and waved the artifacts he stole from Abe.
“Thanks for these, JSDF Army Major Abe Kyoshi.”
One was the rice cake while the other was the rope. Abe almost foamed at the mouth after seeing that. It was not important that the bastard knew his name.
‘That bastard really did steal them!’
“Hey! Put them down right now!”
“Why should I?”
Abe glared at Ju-Heon after hearing that response.
‘That bastard.’
There was only one method left now that things were like this.
“You just wait until I find Muramasa. You'll be the first one I slash in half!”
It was to find Muramasa that was somewhere in this room. He didn’t know where it was just yet, but if he found it!
However, Ju-Heon suddenly started to laugh after hearing Abe's threat. Abe became anxious.
“What the, what’s so funny?!”
Ju-Heon’s laugh echoed inside the tomb.
“What, you're telling me you still haven’t found it even with a seer on your side? You didn’t find it even though it was right in front of you?”
“W, what?”
Abe couldn’t help but be shocked. It was because Ju-Heon sounded as if he had already found it.
And he was saying it was right in front of him?
‘Unbelievable!’
“Muramasa is not here!”
The prophecy had said that Muramasa was a kodachi with a clear blade. However, he had not seen anything here that resembled that. All he saw were broken blades. The only weapons intact were spears, daggers, or podaos.
Ju-Heon then approached Abe as he smiled like a teacher instructing a student.
“Hey idiot, it’s right here.”
He then grabbed an old sword. It didn't even look to be in good condition. The blade was broken and even the remaining bit was so dull that it couldn’t even cut a tree.
That was why Abe could not help but be shocked. Muramasa looked completely different than the pristine kodachi he was expecting.
“Ho. You're saying that is Muramasa?”
“Yes, you moron.”
Ju-Heon then channeled his dominance into the sword. The kodachi that had been cosplaying as an old sword changed and started to let out a heinous aura.
[You somehow managed to find me, you stupid human!]
The sword started to yap on as if he had been struggling to hold back this whole time.
[Human who needs power. Fill me with the blood of ten people if you wish to leave. My physical body will only be restored by drinking human blood!]
The people started to shiver after hearing that. They could not understand this situation nor the things that weapon was saying.
“What is that saying?!”
The only thing they were certain about was that ten people would die. How could they not be scared when their lives were in danger in this unknown situation.
That was the case.
The test for this artifact was simple slaughter.
This artifact’s terrible hobby was to become rejuvenated, no, have the blade be restored with human blood. That was why it had dragged a large number of people into the tomb in the first place.
However, this was not just the case for Muramasa, most of the Japanese blades had similar tests to obtain.
They required the user to slaughter or to show an expert's mindset.
Majority of the famous weapons had received their fame through war, making their internal force stink of blood as well.
‘This is why I don't like the blade-type artifacts very much.’
He was planning on selling Muramasa off after the Great Tomb Appearance. There was someone who would pay a lot of money for Muramasa’s true abilities.
Muramasa seemed to be annoyed with Ju-Heon who had not started to slaughter as it urged him on.
[Hey human, hurry up and kill the others! Don’t you want to take me? Just what are you do......]
“Will you shut the hell up? You stupid blade.”
[W, what?]
Ju-Heon had no plans on doing as this artifact asked. The majority of the people in here were innocent civilians. He would need to be crazy to do things as the artifact wanted him to do.
He was someone who knew how to restore Muramasa without killing people.
The problem was this bastard’s resistance.
‘Well, I can handle up to a B-Grade(Rare-Grade) artifact.’
Ju-Heon tightly clashed his hand around Muramasa's old hilt.
And then...
“You're being too loud so shut up for now.”
He channeled a lot of dominance into it.
Boom!
The tomb started to violently shake as Ju-Heon's dominance and Muramasa’s aura clashed. People were screaming and lying down on the ground or running out of the room.
Muramasa started to run wild at the same time.
[Ack! You arrogant human! You dare!]
Boom! Boom!
The aura was much more violent than the low-grade Muramasa dagger from earlier.
However, Ju-Heon did not budge and continued to suppress Muramasa. Muramasa soon started to wail in pain.
[Human!]
The battle of wills between the two of them did not last long before Ju-Heon sternly gave it an order.
“Absorb all of your other bodies. Muramasa.”
A bright light flashed along with a scream. Something amazing then started to happen.
All of the blades scattered around the tomb as well as the ones stabbed into the walls turned into dust and gathered toward Muramasa.
Then, a blade started to appear on Muramasa’s body contrary to his statement about not being able to do so without human blood.
A fully restored kodachi appeared as the light subsided.
Ju-Heon shouted as soon as it appeared in his hand.
“Close!”
The tomb started to shake and light started to enter through the ceiling. The tomb was crumbling and a path to the exit had appeared.
Ju-Heon activated the rope artifact and shouted toward the civilians.
"Grab onto the rope. It will take you outside.”
The civilians seemed to snap out of their shocks as they all ran forward and grabbed onto the rope. The rope that had been floating around looking like a cobra slowly started to rise.
Once the rope ascended into the sky, only Ju-Heon and Abe were left in the tomb.
Abe peeked toward Ju-Heon before trying to grab onto the rope.
Pow!
Ju-Heon kicked him so he fell off.
“U, ugh!”
“And where do you think you are going?”
“Ugh! You bastard!”
Ju-Heon started to chuckle.
“What is it, were you planning on doing something to the people who left first?”
Abe felt guilty after hearing Ju-Heon call him out and desperately turned around.
Boooooom!
The tomb was crumbling from the back. The ceiling was the only way out.
He started to shout with urgency after determining there was only one way out.