God-Tier Enhancement: My Upgrades Never Fail-Chapter 177: Episode 35_A Feint in the East, a Strike in the West (5)

Chapter 177: Episode 35_A Feint in the East, a Strike in the West (5)

7.

Thunder slammed into Han Simin.

A bolt from the blue!

The one actually getting hit didn’t even realize he had been struck by lightning.

Several seconds passed before he noticed his HP bar plummeting toward zero.

“Arghhh!”

’You crazy fucking lizard!’

[You have taken a critical hit!]

[You are afflicted with Status Ailment: Stun.]

He had almost died.

It wouldn’t have been strange if he had died.

It was a miracle.

The moment he saw his HP dropping, his survival instinct made him trigger the heal on his Beginner’s Dagger. That reflex had created a miracle.

He was too stunned to speak.

He was so dumbfounded and outraged that he couldn’t even speak.

He glared at Kardian, but she only folded her arms and lifted her chin with brazen composure.

“My apologies. A mistake, human.”

“You little—”

“It has been far too long since I last used magic. It couldn’t be helped. You must understand.”

“If you make a mistake like that again, you’ll be attending your own funeral.”

’Kill her or spare her?’

Unfortunately, the trembling, furious Han Simin wasn’t given time to decide such an important question.

RUMBLE-RUMBLE—

“Ppaeaaek!”

Her magic hadn’t been a one-off just to get revenge on her master.

It was only the beginning.

The ground split open, and lightning crashed down.

The first bolt had been nothing more than a warning shot to herald the coming catastrophe, and now the storm poured down even more violently.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

“Gyaaaah!”

“Run!”

A Dragon Raid?

In this situation, no one was thinking about anything like that.

All that mattered was survival.

They devoted themselves solely to staying alive amid the sudden natural disaster.

The players who had come together in unity scattered in all directions as if that had never happened.

As they ran, they fell into the fissures opening in the ground and were vaporized by lightning strikes.

The calamity continued for quite some time.

Even after the survivors had fled beyond its range.

Even as they tried to regroup and prepare for the final day.

* * *

The area where the chaos had erupted was now a forbidden zone.

They had taken heavy losses and failed to kill the dragon.

Even so, they couldn’t give up on the last day.

They had to raise their score by even one point.

The very top rankers did so to eliminate any variables.

The upper rankers, to somehow overturn the subtle gaps in score.

There was no need to even mention those fighting for a spot in the top 100.

Of course, closing the score gap in a single day would not be easy.

It was practically impossible.

The current scores were the result of nearly every guild grinding all night, every night. Would tacking on a single extra day really change anything?

There might be some variance depending on how badly each guild had been hit by the dragon, but that kind of luck was rare and impossible to verify in just one day. Besides, no one was about to publicly disclose how much damage they had taken.

That left only one viable strategy to turn the tables.

Cut down the other guilds’ scores. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Or force them to drop out.

The top guilds knew a bloodbath would only be self-destructive, so they held their positions. But the fight around the 100th-place cutoff was brutal beyond words.

“Kill them!”

“It’s you or me!”

As a result, the rankings were fluctuating more than ever.

NPCs and players alike attacked each other on sight, no questions asked.

The Specialists and the Kenji Guild were no exception.

“Wow. They just keep coming.”

“Well, everyone’s clustered around this area.”

“Can’t we go somewhere else?”

“There’s no time.”

The dragon’s aggro had forced every guild in the Cliffs of Fall to converge on one area. Even if they tried to spread out now, how far could they possibly get?

At best, they could move an hour or two away.

This meant that, on average, half their encounters were with monsters and the other half with other players.

Han Simin’s mind started racing.

’What should I do?’

If he had never aimed for the top, that would be one thing, but the moment he decided he wanted first place, he had to get it.

It wasn’t as if it was completely impossible, either.

“If we wipe out every monster in the mountain range today...”

“Come on. How is that even remotely realistic?”

The Specialists were currently ranked somewhere in the forties.

This was because Kardian, while in their party, had cast a spell that not only killed other players but also wiped out every monster in the vicinity. For whatever reason, the system had apparently judged her as temporarily bound to Han Simin. In any case, it had lit a tiny spark of hope for the Specialists.

Han Simin’s brain spun faster.

’How can I squeeze a little more out of the Emperor? Where’s my path to first place?’

“Ah!”

Just before his head exploded from the effort, he came up with a plan.

’What a stroke of genius.’

“Why? Did you think of something?”

“Yeah. And it’s all thanks to our Dian here.”

Kardian remained silent.

He pulled Kardian into his arms. She wore a sour expression, her mana once again completely drained.

“Hey, isn’t that some shameless favoritism? When Seolah or I do well, you barely even compliment us, but you’re fawning all over her. Are you playing favorites?”

“You can be my pet too, then.”

“No thanks. Who knows what’ll happen to me if I become your pet.”

He ignored Kang Yeseul’s light protest and locked eyes with Kardian.

Even at such a close distance, his gaze was bold and desperate.

Kardian’s pupils trembled.

“A-again? What now! What are you trying to make me do this time!”

He didn’t even need to say it.

The artificial smile plastered on his face to “reassure” her and the greedy glint in his eyes were enough to make her uneasy.

She was already on edge, and now, at such a critical moment, he was hugging her and laying on the kindness way too thick.

There was no way a dragon could fail to understand what that meant.

“You’ll do it for me, right?”

Kardian didn’t answer immediately.

She understood, but there was no way to escape.

There was the unspoken pact between them, not to mention Han Simin’s hands gripping her shoulders.

’So that’s why he suddenly came over and gave me that out-of-the-blue hug.’

’As expected of a demon.’

The resentful glare in the beautiful woman’s eyes would have been unbearable for most men.

Han Simin didn’t even flinch.

“You’ll do it, right?”

She stayed silent.

“Thanks.”

The Specialists’ schedule for the final day was decided.

* * *

8.

The Land of Calamity.

That was the name given to the land of thunder and earthquakes that Kardian had created.

It was a place so terrifying that people were afraid to even set foot there. Even though not a single living creature remained, the ground continued to split open and lightning continued to crash down.

Naturally, no one wanted to go anywhere near it, but most guilds still sent at least one member as a scout to watch over the area.

The reason was simple.

Just in case.

The Dragon Raid had failed, but the dragon was dying.

Only a handful of people, Kenji among them, knew the truth of that last unsettling scene. Everyone else simply assumed it had been the dying dragon’s final, desperate thrash.

If that was the case, what would happen when the calamity ended?

The dragon hadn’t committed suicide, so there had to be a dying dragon somewhere.

No—even if it was already dead, they could at least recover the corpse.

That was why they had stationed scouts there.

If need be, they would explore the land once the calamity subsided, even after the selection event was over.

“Let’s not overdo it.”

“We’re out of the running for the selection event anyway. There’s no point stirring up trouble before the calamity is even over. Let’s just keep it calm and stick to scouting.”

And so, the scouts kept their distance and avoided fighting one another.

Sometimes they shared food, sometimes they patrolled the vast area together, and sometimes they teamed up to take down approaching monsters.

That was just the way of the world.

One moment you could be at each other’s throats; the next, you’d be working together for a common goal.

After several hours of this, they saw something strange.

“Huh?”

“What the...?”

“Are those people?”

That part wasn’t strange in and of itself.

The figures approaching from the distance were clearly human.

Humans weren’t strange.

In a world filled with impossibly shaped monsters, anyone who found a human strange had a problem with their head.

What was strange was the situation.

“Eh?”

“They’re going in?”

“What the hell?”

Three people walked straight into the Land of Calamity without a moment’s hesitation.

It happened so fast there was no time to stop them.

The scouts looked at each other in confusion.

’Did I see that wrong?’

“You saw that, right?”

“Definitely.”

They confirmed what they had seen and nodded.

It wasn’t an illusion or a trick of the eye.

They fell silent.

Once they were certain, goosebumps broke out on their skin.

“What are they doing?”

“Committing suicide?”

Of course, stepping into the Land of Calamity didn’t mean instant death.

The fissures and the lightning strikes had their own cycles and ranges.

After all, thousands of people had managed to survive and flee a considerable distance from the magic’s origin.

But to go ’back’ in there?

Into a zone with no discernible pattern and a random area of effect?

The scouts hurried toward the spot where the trio had entered.

By then, the ones who had gone into the Land of Calamity were already out of sight.

The scouts rushed to report back to their guilds.

“Watch for anyone coming out!”

Every scout received a new order.

Their gazes tangled in a complicated web.

A new mission meant a new dynamic.

’What should we do?’

After a moment’s thought, the scouts held out their hands to each other.

“Let’s share information.”

It wouldn’t harm their respective guilds, and it was something they would all have to report anyway.

Everyone nodded and scattered.

A few hours later, one of them shouted.

“Over here! Over here!”

The three people who had gone into the Land of Calamity had come back out alive.

Their entire bodies were scorched and caked in dirt.

The scouts quickly converged on them.

* * *

The major guilds, and any other guild that had stationed scouts around the Land of Calamity, went on high alert.

Officers and leaders who had been out hunting rushed toward the afflicted zone.

Those urgent movements naturally sparked rumors.

Once again, all eyes turned to the Land of Calamity.

“You’re saying you really found this in there?”

“Yes. It’s the last day, and we wanted to turn our ranking around, but we don’t have the numbers or the strength. We were about to give up, but then we decided to risk our lives one last time. We went in, and after walking for about thirty minutes, we found this.”

“...A dragon scale.”

“Well, it’s not that we didn’t want to explore further, but since we found this, we figured we didn’t need to risk our lives for a better rank anymore. So we came out.”

The crowd fell silent.

Though only one representative from each guild had come, dozens of people were gathered. In front of them all, Kang Yeseul lied through her teeth without batting an eye.

What she held in her hand was unmistakably a jet-black dragon scale.

“May I take a look?”

“Hey! Just because you’re from a big guild doesn’t mean you can be so shameless! Are you trying to steal it?”

“My apologies.”

Greed flashed in everyone’s eyes, but no one dared to make a rash move.

They weren’t the only ones here.

Pretty much every major guild was present.

Acting thoughtlessly in a place like this would only give the other guilds an excuse to pounce.

Matching the tense mood, Kang Yeseul feigned fright and hid behind Jeong Hyeonsu’s back.

“Hyeonsu, Seolah, let’s go. I’m too scared to stay here any longer.”

“Yeah. Let’s call it a day for the guild selection. A dragon scale more than makes up for the time we invested.”

“It is a shame, though. If we’d gone a little farther in, we could’ve picked up a few more. But of course, an earthquake had to split the ground right then.”

With that, they casually strolled away.

They had just tossed out a massive piece of bait.

Everyone gasped.

No fish could resist.

The bait the Specialists had dangled at the risk of their lives was something no one, not even the major guilds, could afford to ignore.

A dragon.

A dragon whose whereabouts—no, whose very life or death—were unknown.

The clue to that mystery had just come from the Specialists’ mouths.

The scouts who had formed temporary alliances scattered as if nothing had happened and rejoined their guild leaders.

Simultaneously, a game of reading the room and frantic guild chats began.

It was a race against time.

“You know, if I play this game with Simin for just three years, I feel like I could inherit my dad’s company and turn it into a global corporation.”

Jeong Hyeonsu didn’t respond.

Watching the scene, Kang Yeseul shook her head.

They had used this bait before. It was an old scam.

And yet, here they were, rushing in without a shred of suspicion.

“Humans really are devious.”

“You dove in there ready to die the moment he said he’d give you a dragon scale.”

“Shh. Hyeonsu, you don’t have to bring that up.”

They sat down, opened a bag of popcorn, and watched people crawl into the Land of Calamity of their own free will.

So far, the plan was a success.

The rest was up to Han Simin.

But not a single one of them doubted he would pull it off.