God-Tier Enhancement: My Upgrades Never Fail-Chapter 277: Episode _Legend of the Demon World (10)

15.

Whether the Heavenly King had arrived in the Demon World to find Aria or not, Han Simin and Epia were in the middle of their own “Antiques Roadshow.”

“These are the jewels I’ve been treasuring.”

“Oh. They look pretty dazzling.”

“These were bestowed upon me by the top-tier demons who ruled this world centuries ago. Their value is by no means low.”

“Oh? Is that so? What do you think, Epia?”

“Mm. They’re fine. These are jewels the Demon King would occasionally bestow upon top-tier demons who had rendered great service. They say they aren’t just for display; if you melt them down and coat a weapon with them, they grant special effects. A lot of top-tier demons stayed loyal to the Demon King because of them.”

“So that’s what they were.”

He wondered what options they gave but didn’t press the issue. Right now, Han Simin held all the cards.

The demons who had seen him as nothing more than a hateful mother-in-law pulling the strings from behind Epia’s throne, and the top-tier demons who had treated him as less than a stray dog, were now fawning over him, desperate to read his expression. That alone said everything.

That was how overwhelming the power of the +15 armor had been. In a way, this was its debut in the Demon World. Anything new inevitably drew attention and looked good. All the more so when it appeared in the middle of enhancing Epia’s twin swords; a bubble was bound to form.

And Han Simin was the one squeezing that bubble for all it was worth.

His silver tongue could turn a glass of beer into half foam—or rather, into a glass of foam with a mere hint of beer. It was a tremendous help in distributing the limited number of armors and weapons.

“So, how about this much? Is it worth trading for a top-tier demon’s life?”

“It feels a bit lacking.”

“It does? Well, nothing to be done then. There are plenty of demons lined up behind you, so...”

“Wait! I have more!”

On top of that, he had an excellent assistant in Epia. Even while pestering him to get her swords to +15 as soon as possible, she actively joined in his bartering campaign.

“Hey! Have you no shame? Are you trying to get yourself killed? If you don’t want to die, take that crap and get lost. Where do you get off bringing this useless trash here and trying to drag down the pride of all demons? Don’t you know it’s exactly this kind of price-gouging that makes humans look down on us? Get out of my sight.”

“I didn’t mishear that, did I?”

“...I don’t think so. That tone sounds awfully familiar.”

“That previous Enhancer... what if that’s actually Simin?”

An outsider would think they’d agreed to a fifty-fifty split. In any case, the results were good. The demons brought out the wealth they had hoarded without holding back. Those who fell short somehow managed to make up the difference from somewhere else.

“If I’d known it would be like this, I’d have stockpiled more.”

“Anyone know a demon who’s sitting on a lot of treasure?”

“I really want that one.”

“Hey. Hand it over. I’ll watch your back.”

Even so, many demons voiced their frustration. There were many of them, but the items were limited and were only distributed to those who brought the most wealth. For demons who usually preferred fighting over treasure, there could be no more unfair deal. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

The Demon World was a place with little use for jewels, and for high-ranking demons, wealth usually meant nothing at all. Of course, the ones who walked away with the +15 armors were still the demons high in the hierarchy. The demons who didn’t normally bother with accumulating wealth made up for their disadvantage with the Demon World’s iron law: survival of the fittest.

If you don’t have it, you take it.

What belongs to someone weaker than me is mine.

If you don’t want to die, hand it over.

In a gathering of thousands of demons, deals and threats were exchanged as if it were nothing. Actual bloodshed broke out frequently as well.

However, Han Simin and Epia did not intervene. They had the mindset of thorough merchants. Who cared where the jewels or goods came from? As long as they got paid, that was all that mattered. Even if the goods were shady, this was a place where no trouble would ever come back to bite them.

These deals were only possible with the Demon King’s permission, and once they returned to the continent, they would never see these demons again. Even if the demons invaded the continent for revenge, the items would no longer be in Simin’s hands.

And so, the bartering of the Demon World’s treasures went on for quite some time. Amidst the demons now clad in flashy +15 items, preparations for the grand finale began.

*

The sacrifices required were greater than at +14, and the ritual they had to perform was incomparably filthy and vile. In the end, however, it was a test of endurance. In tests of patience, Han Simin had never lost. In the end, he pulled it off.

“Phew.”

All that remained was to decide the order of enhancement. The auspicious spot was relatively close. All he had to do was decide which sword to enhance first and move. Safety was not a concern; the +15 enhancement site was a secret vault deep within the Demon King’s castle, and only he and Epia had entered.

“Haah.”

Han Simin stared at the two twin swords and fell into thought. He had reached the final crossroads. He had to swing the hammer, and if he wanted to avoid abandoning the Story Quest and facing permanent death, he couldn’t stall.

There was only one reason he was hesitating. He had felt it at +14, but now the pressure was even worse. Back then, he had been able to swing the hammer because the success rate was a relatively high 73%.

At +15, that was not the case.

Forty-nine percent.

A rate so low it made his face scrunch up, wondering if he could just find that missing 1% somewhere. However, even that wasn’t the real dilemma weighing on him. He already had a way to turn 49% into 50%. It was simple.

Stat points.

He just had to push his Luck to the second limit and Awaken it. Han Simin had already deduced that the first Luck Awakening was tied to his class Awakening, so this wasn’t a problem. Was it a waste to invest stat points into Luck? The increased success rate would more than make up for it. The fact that he wouldn’t be able to invest in his physical stats for now was something he could fix later with a stat reset.

“So, which one first?”

After agonizing for a while, Han Simin ultimately passed the buck to Epia. His desperate gaze was fixed on the two twin swords.

’Which one should I enhance first?’

He had run into the world’s simplest, most straightforward, and yet most difficult problem. The odds of success were fifty-fifty. That was why he couldn’t help but hesitate. If the two swords had had identical options, he wouldn’t have even thought about it.

[+14 Twin Swords of the Succubus Queen]

Grade: Epic Legendary

Required Level: 200

Requirement: Succubus Queen

Attack Power: 2,800 (+17,080)

Option 1: Attack Power +5% (+15%)

Option 2: Critical Strike Damage to Charmed Targets +10% (+30%)

Special Option 1: On hit, Charm Chance +5% (+15%)

Special Option 2: A weapon imbued with the soul of a master. It cannot be destroyed or annihilated.

[+14 Twin Swords of the Succubus Queen]

Grade: Epic Legendary

Required Level: 200

Requirement: Succubus Queen

Attack Power: 2,800 (+17,388)

Option 1: Attack Power +5% (+14.5%)

Option 2: Critical Strike Damage to Charmed Targets +10% (+31%)

Special Option 1: On being hit, a normal chance to trigger ‘Madness’

Special Option 2: On killing an enemy, a certain chance to apply ‘Annihilation’

The primary options were the same. There were slight differences in the additional values, but the overall numbers were close. They only diverged at the special options. One was the sword he had enhanced first, and the other was the sword with the options that had driven the demons into such terror.

In terms of value, the latter was obviously better. Wasn’t that the reason this Demon King was considered the worst and strongest in history?

The Sword of Annihilation.

Once it pierced you, whether you were a lowly demon or a top-tier demon, you couldn’t move a muscle. That was the sword he had to enhance, the one without the destruction and annihilation prevention options.

He fell silent.

When he had enhanced the first sword to +14, the one with the option that said it couldn’t be destroyed, he had been on edge, wondering if that option applied to destruction by enhancement. Likewise, when he enhanced the second sword, he had been so nervous he felt like jumping off a bridge when he was done.

But this time, it was 50%.

Which one should he do first? Instead of going in with the conviction that he would succeed, he had to proceed assuming one would fail. In times like this, realistic judgment was more important than blind optimism.

“Which one is going to blow up first?”

Of course, both could fail and explode. A failure had a 99% chance of resulting in destruction, so the moment he failed, it was over. However, he didn’t go so far as to assume the absolute worst.

One of them would succeed. Which one would it be? He had to put the second sword on the success side.

Seeing Han Simin’s hesitation, Epia pointed without a moment’s thought.

“You were always like this. When you had to choose between left and right, you picked left; between front and back, you picked front.”

The sword she pointed at was the one lying on the left. And the sword on the left was the one with the destruction-prevention option.

Han Simin let out a low exclamation.

“Wow. So that bastard, the previous Enhancer, even agonized over things like this.”

It was a kind of dilemma he himself had never experienced. Before the accident, he had never touched an enhancement unless the success rate was 100%, so he’d never had to choose between 50-50 odds. After the accident, it had always been 100%, so the choice had never come up.

He felt as if he could feel the legendary Enhancer’s hardships. Respect welled up in him again.

Fifty percent was, as always, fifty-fifty. This one or that one. If you picked one and it turned out to be wrong, you would inevitably regret it. ’I should’ve just gone with the other one.’

But the previous Enhancer, after so many enhancements, had always chosen left or front without a shred of hesitation. To have drilled that habit into his lover to the point of brainwashing meant he must have possessed an unshakable system of values.

How much anguish must it have taken to reach that conclusion? How much data must he have gathered? He wouldn’t have chosen left if it was 100%. Even if it was just 0.00001%—even if left had only a 50.000001% chance—he must have chosen it because the data showed it came out ahead.

Han Simin was jealous of that kind of passion.

So he gave the man a mental round of applause.

Then he picked up the sword on the right.

“I’m not about to trust the choice of some guy whose ideology leans left.”

Epia’s unhesitating choice and her explanation had shaken his heart. For some reason, he felt drawn to the right. There was no way he wanted to trust the shady choices of that previous Enhancer. He had already suffered enough as his successor.

His earlier hesitation vanished. He had a strong feeling this would work.

Smiling, he invested his stat points and brought the hammer down. He ignored the holograms that popped up. All he needed to see was the 1% increase in the enhancement success rate.

Fifty percent. But the opposite of what the previous Enhancer had chosen.

’You’re wrong and I’m right.’

He would prove it.

CLANG!

[Enhancement has failed.]

[The item is destroyed.]

*