Debuff Master

Chapter 178

The Shadow Swamp was cast, and a shadow for each Adventurer emerged from the ground.

Seuk… Srreuk…!

The shadows were powerful enough to slow down even the high-level Adventurers.

“W-What’s this?!”

“Which bastard did this?!”

“Who’s the fucking troll?!”

Everyone cried out in frustration at the annoying shadows. It didn’t matter even if they were the loyalists or the traitors.

Fwaaa! Fwaaaaaa!

Siegfried followed up by casting Blaze Field to reduce the Defense and Magic Resistance of everyone within the field.

The word reduce was actually an understatement because Siegfried had basically neutralized their Defense and Magic Resistance.

‘The circles are placed,’?Siegfried thought, but he stopped there.

He did not join the fray.

Why? Was he not going to fight?

Of course, not. Why would he jump into that chaos? He wasn’t that crazy or dumb.

‘You see that chest? Pick it up and throw it to me,’?he commanded the shadows.

Srreuk…

Tak…!

A shadow picked up the ark and threw it to another shadow.

.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

A relay ensued as the shadows transported the ark by passing it to each other amidst the slowed Adventurers.

In the end, the ark finally landed in Siegfried’s hands.

[Alert: You have obtained the item ‘Ark of the Ancient God’!]

Someone quickly shouted, “Get that bastard!”

“How can you even think of doing something like this?!”

“That bastard has a death wish! Kill him first!”

“Kill that scum!”

The Adventurers started hurling expletives at Siegfried. It didn’t matter even if they were the loyalists or the traitors. However, Siegfried couldn’t care less about what they thought about him, so he didn’t even bother to respond.

‘Hold them down.’?He gave the shadows another command before running away.

“Hamchi! Time to run!”

“Kyu!”

Siegfried and Hamchi ran as fast as they could after obtaining the ark.

“Catch that bastard! We must catch him! ARGH!?What the hell are these?!”

“L-Let me go! Let me go, you fucking shadows!”

“What are these stubborn bastards!”

Unfortunately, there was no way that the shadows would listen to them and let go when Siegfried had explicitly commanded them to hold the Adventurers down.

When Siegfried finally went out of the Shadow Swamp’s range, the shadows abruptly disappeared. The loyalists and traitors got up to chase after Siegfried.

“Not so fast!” Seung-Gu suddenly appeared.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

He summoned eleven Iron Golems. The Iron Golems smashed the ground and lifted the ground to form an earth barricade. The Mechanic Force that Siegfried gifted Seung-Gu allowed the latter to summon an army of eleven Iron Golems.

Mechanic Force was a powerful legendary item that allowed the user to create seven Iron Golems on top of increasing the user’s skill levels by three.

Seung-Gu managed to create an army of Iron Golems, which were much more powerful than most types of golems. Seung-Gu also completed his second-class advancement.

[Seung-Gu]

[Type: Adventurer]

[Level: 178]

[Class: Iron Lord (Legendary)]

[Affiliation: Proatine Kingdom]

[Position: Captain of the Labor Force]

[Titles: Site Leader, Construction Site Maestro, Skilled Administrator, King of Labor, One Who Handles Iron, Newbie Pilot.]

The Iron Lord was a class that specialized in handling Iron Golems, and the core ability of the class was the ability to pilot Iron Golems.

Baaaam!

An Iron Golem stood over four meters tall, and it towered over any other golems.

These huge golems grouped up and formed a barricade.

— Hyung-nim! I will handle the rear! Run as fast as you can with the ark!

Seung-Gu urgently shouted at Siegfried while on board an Iron Golem—no, the Titan.

“Thanks!”

— Don’t mention it! Hurry up and go!”

Seung-Gu’s voice had a tinge of anxiety. It was unavoidable for him to feel that way, as he knew very well that he was not going to be able to hold back these high-level Adventurers, even with eleven Iron Golems and the Titan that he was piloting.

However, his main purpose was to buy enough time for Siegfried, so he didn’t think that his army of golems and the Titan wouldn’t be capable of doing just that.

***

Meanwhile, there were three airships flying in the night sky above where the hot pursuit was taking place. These airships were coated with magical camouflage paint that made them impossible to spot from the ground with the naked eye.

On top of that, the airships were armed with special silent motors that got rid of the characteristic motor sound of most airships, which made it impossible to detect by sound.

“A blaze has been spotted on the ground!” reported a soldier clad in the military uniform of the Proatine Kingdom.

“Hmm… A blaze, you say? That must be a signal from His Majesty.” Michele nodded and said, “All right, all airships! Prepare to fire all weapons at the ground!”

“Prepare to fire!”

The soldiers moved busily to load the canons as soon as Michele gave the command, and they aimed all of the canons at the Adventurers on the ground.

“All cannons are ready to fire, sir!”

“Prepare to fire!” Michele exclaimed, “Three, two, one… fire!”

“Fire!”

The soldiers exclaimed and simultaneously pulled the trigger.

Shwoooong… Shwooooong…!

The mortar shells unleashed by the three airships plummeted toward the heads of the Genesis Guild members on the ground.

***

Siegfried had no plans of joining the fray from the start, so that was why he had been thinking about it.

‘How can I sweep them up without fighting…?’

He couldn’t come up with any idea that would allow him to defeat the high-level Adventurers. There was also a ninety-nine percent chance that things could turn south on him really quickly, judging by how many people were vying for the ark.

In addition, everything would end up as a coin toss the moment he joined the chaos.

A light bulb had popped up in Siegfried’s mind.

‘Hold on… I can just use my kingdom’s forces, right?’

He had come up with a brilliant idea—utilize the Proatine Kingdom’s military.

The Proatine Kingdom was a small nation the size of a booger, but it was still an entire nation, which meant that Siegfried currently had more options at his disposal compared to other Adventurers.

In the end, Siegfried decided to seek Michele’s advice on how he could use his kingdom’s resources to resolve his current dilemma.

“Scribe Gringoire.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Go and ask Michele if there is a way for me to kill all of those Adventurers and obtain ownership of the ark without going out to fight for it personally.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

Gringoire went back to Proatine and delivered the message to Michele.

“His Majesty wishes to kill all of those Adventurers without going out to fight personally?”

“Yes, Sir Michele.”

“Without having to fight personally…?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Well, it’s simple...”

Michele quickly came up with a solution to Siegfried’s difficult request.

“We just purchased three combat airships.”

“Three combat airships…?”

Gringoire was surprised.

It wasn’t strange because even the smallest airship designed for combat was an extremely expensive vehicle, and he couldn’t imagine that their small Proatine Kingdom could actually afford even one of those, not to mention three.

“It was a bit expensive, but we were able to buy it thanks to our flourishing trade. After all, there was also that incident with the Dimensional Rift…”

Michele was regretful that they had no combat airships at the time. The monsters coming out of the rift would have been easily disposed of with a combat airship.

“I will send Sir Seung-Gu. Please tell His Majesty to give us the signal, and our fleet of combat airships will drop bombs on top of the Adventurers’ heads.”

“Oh! Excellent idea!”

Gringoire was impressed.

The Adventurers from another world possessed strange abilities that made them extremely powerful, but it should be impossible for them to survive a direct hit from a bomb.

The owner of the ark would have already been decided long ago if one of them was powerful enough to survive a direct hit from a bomb.

And Michele’s plan resulted in…

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The bombs dropped by the three combat airships blew the Genesis Guild members to smithereens. None of them were able to sense the approaching airships, so they were all caught off guard by the sudden bombing.

“Halt!” Michele gave the command to stop the bombing before giving another command. “All ships shall wait until His Majesty comes on board.”

“Switch to hover mode…!”

“Switching to hover mode…!”

The Proatine Kingdom’s three combat airships silently hovered and waited for Siegfried’s arrival.

***

“Phew…?I almost got caught up in the bombing…” Siegfried let out a sigh and wiped the sweat off of his forehead.

“Kyu!?Hamchi almost got bombed, too!” Hamchi exclaimed.

If they had delayed their escape by at least ten seconds, then they would have died by friendly fire just now. A smoldering crater just seven to eight meters away from Siegfried proved that the bombs were capable of annihilating the two of them.

“Anyway, what matters is that we’re alive. Now, we should…” Siegfried trailed off. He had already secured the ark, but there was no way he would just run away like this. “We should pick up all of the items.”

“All right, kyu!”?

Siegfried was sure that there were no survivors from the bombing just now, so he could rest easy and collect the items that the Adventurers had dropped due to the death penalty.

There was no need to take a rain check on collecting free?items on the ground, right?

‘I should collect Seung-Gu’s item as well and return it to him…’?Siegfried thought.

Seung-Gu had died from the bombing, so Siegfried decided to prioritize collecting Seung-Gu’s item.

“Where is it…” Siegfried muttered, scouring through the charred battlefield.

“Wow… Look at this…?” Siegfried muttered in surprise after spotting an item on the ground. He chuckled hollowly in disbelief and said, “He’s quite the unlucky one, isn’t he? How could he drop his main weapon out of everything he could have dropped…?”

Siegfried saw a long stick in the rubble of the Iron Golems. The long stick was none other than Mechanic Force, which had already become Seung-Gu’s lifeblood.

The chance of dropping one’s main weapon upon dying was extremely low. It was actually more likely for someone to slip on a pile of dog feces, fall backward, and break their nose.

Siegfried was very familiar with that fact. After all, he had already become an expert on the death penalty after being hunted down by the Genesis Guild.

Siegfried started wondering if his class were Scavenger instead of the Debuff Master. Well, he wasn’t really ashamed of what he was doing because he had already obtained the title of Vulture.

“Still, it’s great that I managed to find it. Thanks for your sacrifice, Seung-Gu…” Siegfried muttered as he placed Mechanic Force into his Inventory. He was extremely grateful to Seung-Gu for the latter’s sacrifice.

With that being said, he resumed his scavenging.

[Alert: You have obtained the item Sword of Truth!]

[Alert: You have obtained the item Sledgehammer!]

[Alert: You have obtained the item Bone Shield!]

[Alert: You have obtained the item Cup of a Third-Rate Novelist!]

[Alert: You have obtained the item Regal Brass Knuckles!]

For some reason, the item Regal Brass Knuckles sounded strange in Siegfried’s ears, but he still picked it up.

Thud… Thud… Thud…

All of a sudden, Siegfried sensed someone walking toward him from the other end of the charred battlefield.

‘Someone survived the bombing?’?Siegfried was surprised as he turned toward the survivor.

“W-Who the fuck are you…?” The survivor growled in anger.

Chae Hyung-Seok.

He was the only survivor of the bombing.