God-Tier Enhancement: My Upgrades Never Fail-Chapter 278: Episode _Legend of the Demon World (11)

16.

For a moment, his mind went blank.

[You have reached a Luck value of 1,500.]

[The effects of the 2nd Luck Awakening are applied.]

[Enhancement success rate increases by 2%.]

[On enhancement success, the chance to add a special option increases by 3%.]

[On enhancement success, the chance for enhancement effect increase rises by 3%.]

[On enhancement success, the chance of evolution increases by 2%.]

[Magic required for enhancement decreases by 10%.]

He couldn’t possibly pay attention to the hologram announcing a 2% increase instead of 1%, nor to the list of additional effects. His disbelieving mind could only focus on two messages: enhancement failed, item destroyed.

The question “Why?” didn’t last long.

Even at 51%, it was still a coin flip. The hammer had fallen, but it had landed on the wrong side of that 51% probability. The enhancement had failed. And with no 1% miracle to save it, the item was destroyed.

This was his first destruction since the accident.

He stood frozen.

Faced with an outcome he hadn’t even considered, he froze. He had chosen with the thought that one might fail, but he had never truly believed it would. Especially after hearing about the previous Enhancer’s choice, he had been certain.

’The right one. It will succeed, no question.’

But it had blown up. That was an irreversible reality. The twin sword that had been resting on the anvil had turned to dust without a trace. Fantastic World’s merciless system didn’t even grant the small mercy of other games, where at least a fragment might remain for a restoration attempt.

In that respect, at least, it was a perfectly designed game.

Wouldn’t it be nice if a failed enhancement just introduced some impurities and lowered the item’s stats? But no, the game had to be needlessly realistic in this one area.

He wanted to vent his frustration, but he didn’t have the time. In that instant, his attention snapped to Epia, who had been watching beside him.

’Fuck.’

It had been a while since he’d let out such a sincere, heartfelt curse, but he didn’t even have the leisure to register that fact.

The problem wasn’t that the sword had been destroyed. It wasn’t even his weapon. What mattered was the fate of the Story Quest.

Would Epia forgive him? Was his life in Fantastic World going to end here? If he had just died once and then returned to the continent, could he escape this situation?

Even though it was just a game, a cold sweat trickled down his back. He wanted to sneak a glance at Epia’s expression, but he couldn’t even bring himself to look. That was how absurd this situation was.

Yet even in the midst of that, astonishingly, part of his mind was already running on a different track.

’Fuck. So what.’

It wasn’t anger born of regret. It was something else entirely.

’Would it have been different if I’d picked the left?’

It was the world’s most pointless regret, and yet one he couldn’t help but have. Besides, hadn’t Epia said it was the previous Enhancer’s choice?

Maybe the outcome had been fixed from the start.

A torrent of absurd thoughts flooded his mind.

To clear his head, Han Simin made a decision.

’I’m dead anyway.’

At least he wouldn’t go out with any regrets.

He immediately grabbed the remaining sword—now a single one-handed blade.

Then he brought the hammer down.

This one wasn’t going to explode anyway.

He’d at least push this one to +15 and get rid of this lingering discomfort.

That first failure had been a necessary step.

He would prove that even if he had chosen the left, nothing would have changed.

With the swing of the hammer, a crimson aura flooded the dark underground storeroom.

17.

Of course, the +15 attempt was being streamed.

He’d turned off the broadcast for things like the quiet recycling of +15 armor—a process best kept off-stream, lest affairs of the Demon World leak to the continent. But there was no reason not to stream content that could squeeze money out of the viewers.

The viewers watched, swallowing hard, and were with him the moment it blew.

—LOLLLLLLLL

—Wow. So this guy’s gear really can blow up while enhancing.

—What were the odds on that?

—The streamer said it was fifty-fifty.

—+15 is fifty-fifty? What the hell is that class?

—Amazing. He kept bragging about his enhancements, serves him right.

The reactions fell into two main camps.

Some people just enjoyed the show for what it was, while others laughed out of jealousy.

—Damn, that sword looked insane. Did he really just blow that up?

—Why the hell did he pick the right one when the Demon King told him to pick the left?

—We all agree it would’ve succeeded if he’d gone left, right?

—God, this is painful to watch. He actually popped it.

—Aren’t the odds fixed anyway? The story bait was that the previous Enhancer always picked the left. This streamer only knows how to enhance and doesn’t know jack about the game.

Others were genuinely heartbroken.

Either way, no one could deny this was a broadcast for the ages.

It was the Demon King’s weapon, after all.

An Epic Legendary grade, with a level requirement over 200.

He had just blown up an item of a grade that no one but Han Simin had ever even laid eyes on.

And he had done it at the very last moment of a Story Quest.

Where else could you find a stream this thrilling, this tense, this brutally realistic?

No one thought he had rigged it for ratings or content, either.

Even at a glance, this was a quest with billions of won on the line.

No—anyone who knew Fantastic World even a little could tell that the value tied up in this quest might be far beyond that.

And he had rigged that?

Sure, if you considered Han Simin’s viewer count and the price of his stream, you could argue it would be worth it.

But the content that would follow after successfully clearing this quest was not something to be casually thrown away.

Besides, the story after blowing it up was obvious.

Death. Resurrection. And then more death.

An endlessly repeating chase.

Even if he somehow made it back to the continent, it would never end.

The Demon King would invade the continent just to get revenge on the human who had destroyed her weapon.

Even if the warlocks were nearly wiped out, it would be the same.

Would that be fun?

A strange silence fell, and the chat scrolled so fast it was unreadable.

In the midst of the chaos, it happened.

Han Simin made his move.

The hammer swung, and crimson light swallowed the screen.

—Wow. So yeah, it really would’ve succeeded if he’d gone left.

—Holy shit. Did that just succeed at +15?

—Damn, it would’ve been even better if it failed.

—That one’s protected by a destruction shield anyway, it can’t blow.

—Still, you never know. The enhancement level could’ve dropped. I wanted to watch him tilt as it kept dropping and dropping.

At that moment, the screen changed.

*

It was the third video.

It appeared out of nowhere.

The setting was the Demon World.

The characters were a succubus who looked exactly like Epia, and an even younger Epia.

"Mom."

"Yes, sweetie."

With an innocent expression, Epia looked at the two twin swords laid out neatly before her and asked her question.

In the present, the swords—or rather, the single sword that remained—were layered with a bloody aura. But in the video, the twin blades were as noble and pure as Epia herself, who looked impossibly innocent for a succubus.

"What’s this?"

The video continued along with Epia’s question.

"That is the hope and legend of the succubi."

"Legend?"

"Yes, sweetie. A legend passed down from the absolute rulers of the Demon World. It tells of a chosen one, born among the succubi once every tens of thousands of years. A legend from thousands of years ago—no, even further back than that."

"Wow. That sounds cool."

"Isn’t it? And sweetie... you are that legend."

"Me? Really?"

"Of course. The legend that will rule the Demon World and conquer the continent."

"Wow! I wanna be a legend!"

It was the first time he had heard the origin of the twin swords.

Epia’s mother continued.

"These are the words left behind by the former Succubus Queen who once ruled the Demon World. Listen carefully."

"Okay."

"For the sake of the future Succubus Queen, I leave behind these twin swords. Originally, these twin swords were two souls split from a single blade. To draw out their true power, they must be made one again. And for that, the Queen needs her eternal consort. Even as twin swords alone, they possess enough might to rule the Demon World, but you must find the consort of your soul and fulfill the legend of ruling not only the continent but the Celestial Realm itself."

"...Consort?"

The video ended on Epia’s lingering murmur.

At the same time, his mind snapped back.

The chat, the stream—none of it registered. All Han Simin could see was the remaining one-handed sword glowing crimson and the indescribable expression on Epia’s face.

With that, the details he had been too emotionally tangled to process began to click into place.

Why had Epia entrusted the next enhancement to Han Simin, the man who had just blown up one of the swords?

Even if that hammer swing had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, Epia was the one who had danced through dozens of top-tier demons, moving so fast his eyes couldn’t even track her.

There was no way she couldn’t have stopped a single move from him.

’No way...’

Connecting her inaction with the former Succubus Queen’s message, a hypothesis emerged.

It was, in effect, a prophecy.

No, maybe it didn’t quite rise to the level of a prophecy.

Her words—"You must be sure to find your consort" and "You need a consort to make it a one-handed sword, so do your best"—implied that the former Succubus Queen herself had never found one.

And yet, of all people, Han Simin had been chosen as the consort of the Succubus Queen, who appeared once every tens of thousands of years?

He got goosebumps.

’Is this all BetaGo’s design?’

That explanation felt absurd even to him.

It was probably just luck. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

A literal fifty-fifty.

The final hidden story of the Story Quest.

...

So what did that mean?

Because that last 51% chance had failed, the quest had ultimately succeeded?

No, had it really succeeded?

Looking at Epia, who was staring at him with complex emotions, saying nothing despite him having just destroyed one of her weapons, it certainly didn’t ’feel’ like a failure.

Should he be glad he’d popped it?

Han Simin was just as dumbfounded as anyone.

If you thought about it, Han Simin was perhaps the only person who could have ’failed’ this Story Quest.

If one had succeeded and the twin swords had remained as they were—

If it had been anyone but Han Simin, that scenario would never have existed.

The success rate for +15 was 0.001%.

In practice, that meant at least one of them would be destroyed.

“Ah, screw it.”

He wiped the tangled thoughts from his mind.

To sum it up: he had failed an enhancement for the first time, and one of the Epic Legendary twin swords had exploded as a result. Unwilling to die with that regret, he’d decided, half out of spite, to enhance the other sword—and that one had succeeded. Then the final quest video played, revealing the twist, and the quest ended successfully.

...

[You have completed the quest.]

A hologram appeared to back up that conclusion.

A true last-minute save, the kind of hologram that would leave him with no defense if people accused him of staging it.

A Story Quest that could only be cleared by ’failing’ an enhancement.

Well, the difficulty had been absurd from the start.

Legendary this, Legendary that, and then they wanted a +15 success on top of it.

Even the previous Enhancer, who had to have been at least level 200, had only managed +12.

Now that he had confirmation, there was no reason to be nervous anymore.

Han Simin picked up the crimson one-handed sword and rose to his feet.

He straightened his shoulders and held it out to Epia.

“Here. I kept my prom—mmph.”

His confidence didn’t last long.

At the sudden attack of a succubus who had just found her lifelong consort, the world’s only Epic Legendary +15 one-handed sword fell pathetically to the floor.

—Fuck. I’m jealous. Report him.

Whether this was a blessing or a curse, the viewers could only swallow hard as they witnessed the historic birth of the Demon King’s consort.

*