Swordmaster Healer - Chapter 88

SMH 88
Swordmaster Healer – Episode 88

TL: Boko

Editor: HungryPanda

Chapter 29: Pan-Dimensional Task Force (3)

Sung Joon mopped up the remnants and thoroughly destroyed the training camp facilities.

“It seems like there aren’t any remaining,” Rishubalt reported.

Most of them had gathered to ambush Sung Joon without running away, befitting of the Empire’s soldiers who were excessively loyal to the Emperor.

Deserters, and those who hadn’t gathered, were a minority.

“Now I just need to find the theoretical book on the dimensional leap.”

“They’ll have used a powerful locking magic formula, so if you just follow the mana response, you’ll be able to find it without difficulty.”

Just as Rishubalt said, there was an area where he felt an especially powerful mana, and Sung Joon hurriedly walked over there.

He soon arrived at the area where he assumed the dimensional leap theoretical book was stored.

They must have had blind faith in the locking formula; if not, they may have called for an ambush, as he couldn’t see any guards.

“Shall we start?” Sung Joon said leisurely, and took out the ‘Anvel’s Master Key’, putting it to the locking magic formula. As soon as he poured his mana into the master key, the locking magic formula broke, and the iron gate started to open.

There was a small storage box inside.

“There’s no locking magic formula here.”

Rishubalt examined the storage box first, and then reported to Sung Joon.

“That’s a relief,” Sung Joon said.

Since the master key had used up all of its built-in mana* to open the gate, if there was another locking magic formula on the storage box, it would’ve become awkward. (*As a reminder, the master key’s built-in mana fuels the magic formula that opens locks. Sung Joon’s mana merely starts the process. The master key can’t use his mana to fuel the magic formula.)

The only thing securing the storage box was a worn-out lock.

It looked quite durable, but Sung Joon severed the lock with his aura-clad dagger, and opened the storage box. There was a small book inside.

“‘Dimensional Leap Theoretical Book.’…”

Sung Joon read aloud the other world language on the cover, smirking as he read it.

“I doubt that the Empire expected that I had the only master key…”

They put way too much trust in their locking magic formula, and they thought that the only thing that could release it had been lost, the item, ‘Anvel’s Master Key’.

As a result, such a precious item had been stolen in vain.

Sung Joon brought his measuring tool to it, but there wasn’t a response signaling that it was an item.

“Are you going to destroy it?” Rishubalt asked.

“No, I think there’ll be a time when I’ll use it in the future,” Sung Joon shook his head and replied.

Destroying it was one of the options, but it didn’t take up much space, so Sung Joon put it inside his dimensional pouch.

“Let’s get going,” Sung Joon said.

Since he had already defeated the Boss, he had already fulfilled the clear condition. He could leave immediately if he wanted to.

Rishubalt nodded his head, and raised both of his hands. He drew his mana and the surrounding landscape melted away, reappearing as the Boss Room of the dungeon he had last attacked.

He left the dungeon and after reporting to the worker, drove to the Dungeon Bureau in order to sell his magic stones.

“It comes out to a sum of $320,000. I’ll deposit it into your registered account.”

His payment was deposited into his account; since he had solo played, Sung Joon didn’t have to share any of his profits with anyone else.

He walked over to the parking lot and checked his bank balance. He had meanwhile gathered more than $20 million.

‘Shall I go to the VIP auction house…?’ he thought suddenly.

The items that were brought up in the VIP auction house would probably be inordinately expensive, but since he had $20 million, he thought it was worth a go.

And if he didn’t find an item that he liked, it seemed like it would at least be a good experience for him.

“Are you planning on visiting the VIP auction house?”

Rishubalt asked, seeing Sung Joon take out and examine the VIP membership card. The location of the VIP auction house was recorded on the card.

Finally, Sung Joon checked the location of the VIP auction house and drove there.

“We’re here,” Sung Joon said to himself, and disembarked from the driver’s seat. He had parked his car in a parking lot in Seoul Station.

“Is it here?” Rishubalt asked.

“Yeah. I didn’t think it’d be underneath Seoul Station,” Sung Joon replied.

It was written on the VIP member card that there was a secret passageway underneath Seoul Station, allowing access to the VIP auction house. And the key that opened that passageway was the VIP membership card.

‘It seems like there are more important figures* involved than I thought.’ (*Tycoons, politicians, etc.)

Just the fact that the VIP auction house is underneath Seoul Station meant that these important figures could and did meddle with the government.

‘I wonder who Park Jung Chul’s father is.’

Jung Chul was in charge of a normal auction house, and when Sung Joon had seen him last, he remembered Jung Chul saying that his father held an influential position.

Jung Chul was an A-rank Hunter, but to be put in charge of a covert auction house meant that his father had to wield a tremendous amount of influence.

‘For now, let’s go inside the VIP auction house.’

Sung Joon went underneath Seoul Station. He quickly got lost since he was limited to the rough map that was recorded on the membership card.

However, with Rishubalt’s assistance and Sung Joon’s own efforts, they were able to find the hidden passageway where there were the occasional human footprints.

[Off limits except to interested parties.]

There was a direction board that stated that it was off limits to anyone except interested parties, but at the center of the tightly shut door, there was a device hanging that recognized cards.

-Beep.

As soon as he brought his VIP membership card to it, the device emitted a unique mechanical sound and recognized the card.

When the recognition was finished, the door opened. There was an elevator at the end of the long corridor. As soon as he entered the elevator, he saw a button that had an ‘X’ stamped onto it.

“There’s only one button,” Rishubalt said, and Sung Joon nodded his head. After that, he pressed the button and the elevator started to move.

There was a ‘mask’ that hung on the wall. Sung Joon remembered Jung Chul saying that they wore masks in the VIP auction house in order to hide their identities, so he covered his face with the mask.

“It’s like the Kingdom Alliance’s Dark Assassin Squad.”

The Dark Assassin Squad was the Kingdom Alliance’s assassination unit and characteristically wore strange masks. The mask Sung Joon was wearing was also peculiar, just like the ones that they wore.

It was mostly white, but there was a frightening smile drawn at the sides of the mouth; it was the mask of a ghost.

“The Dark Assassin Squad, huh… It’s not bad,” Sung Joon muttered, as if he were speaking to himself.

As soon as the elevator door opened, Sung Joon saw a completely different and new spectacle. Despite it being underground, the room was quite vast.

There was a huge fountain in the middle, and there were also several people walking around. The roads leading to the auction houses were well maintained, and he also saw lodgings, as well as various amenities.

‘The auction status board is…’

Sung Joon looked for the auction status board first. Though the underground was vast, he got some help from the information desk clerk, so he was able to find the auction status board.

While the auction house was huge, there weren’t that many registered items, and the auctions didn’t even happen very frequently.

‘The Feast of Poison…?’

Sung Joon was examining the status board and his sight stopped at an item he was familiar with.

The Feast of Poison.

It was one rank lower than the SS-rank, ‘Scripture of Disaster’ and was an S-rank item, but it was an item that the government put limitations on, an item of mass destruction.

‘This item should be under government management, though…’

Sung Joon sifted through his memories with a grave expression. Just a little while ago, he had read a bulletin board message on Hunter.com regarding the ‘Feast of Poison’, saying it had gone from restricted by the government to being managed by the government, just like the ‘Scripture of Disaster’ was.

‘Did someone leak the item…?’

If the ‘Feast of Poison’ was also leaked following the ‘Scripture of Disaster’, that meant that they had help from someone on the inside.

‘This probably isn’t the end. They’ve probably been leaking them from a while back.’

There should be more than one helper on the inside. The other day, when he had met Jung Chul, he remembered him saying that there had been a helper on the inside for a while.

“Rishubalt.”

Sung Joon spoke so softly that the people passing by couldn’t hear him. Rishubalt stopped looking around and approached Sung Joon.

“My lord, did you call for me?”

“Shall we investigate?”

“Investigate what?”

“The item of mass destruction.”

It wasn’t something grandiose like a sense of justice or something like that. He was just curious. The auction for the ‘Feast of Poison’ was in the fourth auction house and there was about two hours remaining.

Sung Joon went to a cafe nearby the fourth auction house and drank coffee. After an hour and thirty minutes had passed, and there was only thirty minutes before the auction, Sung Joon went into the fourth auction house.

“The auction will begin in thirty minutes.”

The MC voice rang out through the speakers. Sung Joon reclined in his chair, and examined his surroundings as naturally as he could.

Most of the people looked to be attendants and were accompanying a small minority of people. It looked like only around three people came by themselves, if Sung Joon was excluded.

“The auction will begin in five minutes,” the MC said.

In no time, the auction began. He had planned to participate in the auction at the beginning, but as soon as it got to $10 million, Sung Joon felt shaken, and when it passed $15 million, Sung Joon shook his head and gave up.

“The winning bid! Customer number 43! Congratulations!”

Excluding customer number 43, everyone else had left the fourth auction house. Sung Joon hid himself in an area where the CCTVs didn’t cover, and was going to use his ‘stealth’ to follow him.

“My lord! This place is equipped with an item that detects stealth.”

“Is that so…? It did seem too easy…”

Although he couldn’t use his stealth, Sung Joon wasn’t flustered. He was used to concealing his presence, and following someone.

Sung Joon waited nearby, in the cafe in front of the fourth auction house. After about ten minutes, five men brought out a storage box.

Amongst the five, four of them looked to be attendants.

“Three of them are B-rank Hunters,” Rishubalt reported.

And they started walking to the entrance. It wasn’t towards the direction of the elevator that Sung Joon had ridden on.

Sung Joon started to move quickly.

“Are you planning on going up first and waiting for them?”

“Yeah. You go follow behind them.”

“I understand.”

After Rishubalt had nodded his head, he parted ways with Sung Joon. Sung Joon went ahead of the five men and took the elevator up to Seoul station.

It might’ve overlapped with the time that the train came, but several people started to disembark. However, Sung Joon was able to find the people with the winning bid without difficult.

That’s because Rishubalt was following behind them.

‘Is it nearby…?’

Since they had left Seoul Station, Sung Joon disguised himself by wearing non-prescription glasses and a hat, and used his stealth to follow behind them. The men didn’t utilize a car and were moving by foot.

The instant they entered an alley, the men turned around and turned their sight towards Sung Joon’s direction.

“It was expensive, but I’m glad I decided to buy this stealth detecting item,” the man in the middle said, and the three accompanying B-rank Hunters immediately raised their hands up together.

“Transform.”

The three recited the activation words and swords appeared in their hands.

‘I heard that a stealth detecting item was inordinately expensive and was rare, but… I didn’t think he’d actually have one…’

Sung Joon didn’t release his stealth. Though they had detected him with an item, he thought that they wouldn’t know his precise location.

“Boys, take care of the rest.”

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The man in the middle and the man carrying the storage box retreated.

“It seems like you’re just relying on your stealth. You should just show yourself.”

Sung Joon released his stealth. He hadn’t been provoked, either.

“I’ll show you what it means to be overpowered,” Sung Joon proclaimed.