Chapter 252: The Thousand Curses Dragon (4)

One week later, they received a message from Kim Si-Hoo that the Astral Relic had been completed.

Song Ha-Eun and Kwon Oh-Jin looked at the silver case with an elegant design. She swallowed nervously and carefully opened the case. Inside was a pair of black leather gloves with a simple design. Red starstones, each the size of a fingernail, were embedded near the knuckle area.

As Song Ha-Eun lightly imbued her mana into the gloves, the red Starstones resonated with each other and glowed hot.

Fwoosh!

“

Whoa

.” She gasped without even realizing.

The heat felt noticeably stronger than when she created flames barehanded.

“So this is the Astral Relic I got in return for selling Oh-Jin’s body.”

Kwon Oh-Jin frowned from beside her. “Saying it like that sounds incredibly unpleasant.”

Kim Si-Hoo smiled in satisfaction as he watched Song Ha-Eun marvel at the gloves. “Taking your unique abilities into account, I designed it to amplify only the heat aspect of your Stigma’s mana! Other people wouldn’t get much out of it, but there’s nothing better for an Awakener of Draco like you!”

“You made this in just a week?”

“Well, it’s not the most complicated Astral Relic to make. The reason Astral Relics that amplify mana are so expensive is just because the Starstones that go into them are outrageously costly.”

Even so, the fact that he created something like this in just a week proved his genius once again.

“Thanks. I’ll use it well.”

“Just don’t come back with it broken out of boredom like Oh-Jin. If this gets damaged, repair costs alone start at several billion won.”

“I’ll put it in a display case and never touch it!”

That would completely defeat the purpose of spending thirty billion won on it, Ha-Eun.

“Well, come see me again if anything comes up! Or even if nothing does!” Kim Si-Hoo said.

“

Hehe

, I’ll treat you to something tasty next time.”

“Okay!”

Song Ha-Eun affectionately ruffled his hair, and he beamed with a happy smile.

“Well then, I’m off!” Song Ha-Eun said.

They left the lab behind and headed straight home. After an entire week of waiting for the Astral Relic, they had no time to waste. On top of their apartment building, a helicopter prepared by the Colgrande Family had already landed on the rooftop helipad.

Isabella wore a more practical outfit for moving instead of her usual dresses and approached them. “Did you get the Astral Relic?”

“Yeah. I gave it a quick test. This thing is a beast.” Song Ha-Eun held up the black leather gloves with a smile.

“That’s good to hear. Oh, right. Please take one of these.” Isabella handed them each a small pouch the size of a hand. It contained several overlapping talismans, each inscribed with intricate patterns.

“These are the Astral Relics effective against curses?” Kwon Oh-Jin asked.

“Yes.”

They hadn’t just been twiddling their thumbs for the past week while waiting for Song Ha-Eun’s gear.

The Thousand Curses Dragon’s greatest weapon was its curses. To counter it, Isabella had been traveling around the world in search of Astral Relics with strong anti-curse effects.

“I’ve also prepared some for Mr. Riarc and Lady Vega.”

“We’ll pass them along when they arrive.”

Kwon Oh-Jin would summon Vega and Riarc near the nest to minimize the Law’s restrictions.

He tucked the pouch into his coat and looked at Isabella. “Thanks for fulfilling such a difficult request.”

Although no one mentioned the prices, the cost had to have been astronomical from Song Ha-Eun’s new gear to these talismans. Even the incredibly wealthy Colgrande Family couldn’t spend that kind of money lightly.

“

Hehe

. I’d spend even more if it’s for you, Mr. Oh-Jin.” Isabella smiled sweetly as if it were nothing.

Rich, kind, a good cook, and devoted too? Maybe I didn’t destroy the world in the past.

Kwon Oh-Jin chuckled, overwhelmed by her generosity.

“If we manage to bring down the dragon, we’ll hand over the Starstones and the corpse to the Colgrande Family.”

A monster of the dragon’s caliber could easily bring in over ten billion won through its Starstone and body parts. Even that wouldn’t cover half of what Isabella had already spent, but he couldn’t just keep receiving without giving back.

“Besides that, I’m just excited to go on a date with you, Mr. Oh-Jin.” Isabella seductively smiled and licked her lips. She looked like someone about to feast on a delicious meal.

“Well...” Kwon Oh-Jin gulped and looked away, avoiding her gaze.

Song Ha-Eun, who was smoking, turned and headed toward the helicopter. “Hey, don’t flirt in front of your girlfriend. Let’s get going now.”

“Okay.”

“Yes, unnie.”

Kwon Oh-Jin, Song Ha-Eun, and Isabella all boarded the helicopter.

“Alright then.” Song Ha-Eun stubbed her cigarette out in a portable ashtray and boldly stretched her arm toward the north. “Let’s go!”

***

“Drop us off around here.”

The helicopter brought them to Pyongyang, the city where the dragon, Barbatos, was last seen.

Stepping out of the helicopter, Song Ha-Eun clicked her tongue and looked around the ruined cityscape. “

Ugh.

No matter how many times I see it, I just can’t get used to this place.”

Once the capital of North Korea, Pyongyang had become a ghost town with not a single soul after being destroyed six years ago by the Thousand Curses Dragon and its monstrous horde. If it hadn’t been for the sacrifice of numerous Awakeners back then, including Song Ha-Eun, Seoul would’ve ended up the same way.

Upon arriving at the destination, Kwon Oh-Jin poured mana into the pendant hanging around his neck and called out to Vega.

“Vega.”

The silver pendant glowed, summoning Vega and Riarc.

“So is this where the dragon’s nest is?” Vega asked.

“Yeah.”

Riarc sniffed the air and scanned the area. “

Grrrr

. I don’t smell anything yet. Where exactly is this nest?”

Crumbling buildings filled the street. A dragon couldn’t easily hide here.

“Beneath us.” Kwon Oh-Jin pointed to the cracked concrete ground.

“If it’s underground... You mean the subway?”

“Exactly.”

According to Lee Shin-Hyuk’s memories, the dragon’s lair was deep beneath Pyongyang in its subway tunnels.

“Pyongyang’s subway was built a hundred meters deep and originally intended to double as an air raid shelter during wartime.”

It was large enough for a massive creature and extremely sturdy thanks to its intended purpose. There probably wasn’t a better place than this for the dragon to build its lair.

“Sure, it makes for a great lair, but how did the Valhalla Guild not find somewhere so obvious?” Song Ha-Eun asked.

The Valhalla Guild wouldn’t have overlooked the subway as they searched for the dragon, especially given how dragons typically favored caves or canyons. The subway should’ve been their first guess.

“They probably suspected the subway, but couldn’t figure out which station.” Kwon Oh-Jin slightly narrowed his eyes and continued. “The dragon’s lair was in a nonexistent station and not on any line.”

Due to North Korea’s long dictatorship, civilians couldn’t access certain hidden stations. The dragon had settled in one of these nameless off-the-books stations.

The Valhalla Guild members weren’t intelligence agents, so finding a station not even on any maps or line charts would’ve been nearly impossible.

Even Lee Shin-Hyuk had to scour every rail line himself to eventually find it.

The lair was simply unreachable by conventional means.

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

“Then, should we head underground now?” Isabella asked.

He gently shook his head. “No. There’s no reason to fight him on his home turf.”

As its name suggested, the dragon wielded a thousand curses. Its lair would undoubtedly be saturated with an overwhelming amount of curses. Even in Lee Shin-Hyuk’s memories, it had been a struggle just to breach the lair.

“To lure the enemy into a more favorable battleground,

huh

. Not a bad idea, kid,” Riarc said approvingly.

Vega floated into the air and perched on top of Kwon Oh-Jin’s head. “But how do you plan to draw the dragon out?”

Getting a creature in a deep underground fortress to come out wouldn’t be easy.

“That’s—”

“

Oh!

I know!” Before he could answer, Song Ha-Eun clapped with a smile. “I just have to set its lair on fire, right?”

After all, nothing was better than a fire attack to flush out enemies holed up in a fortress.

“That won’t be enough,” he said.

“It won’t?”

“Fire naturally rises instead of sinking.”

It wouldn’t be effective in luring out a creature hiding so far underground.

“Well, if I go down there myself and set the place on fire—”

“The dragon will sense you the moment you enter the station.”

It wasn’t just some mindless demonic beast operating on primal instinct. As a Named monster, the dragon possessed intelligence equal to or exceeding humans. It had surely planned for intrusions if it went to the trouble of building an underground lair.

“Then, what do we do?” Song Ha-Eun asked.

“If fire doesn’t work, we’ll use water.”

Song Ha-Eun cocked her head in confusion. “Water?”

“There’s more than just the subway under here. There’s also the sewer system.”

Lee Shin-Hyuk had thoroughly investigated all of Pyongyang to find the lair, and Kwon Oh-Jin had acquired all that knowledge through his Deja Vu ability. Right now, Kwon Oh-Jin knew the entire layout of Pyongyang’s subway and sewer systems like the back of his hand.

“If we burst the sewers and flow water into the tunnels, it’ll have no choice but to crawl out.”

“Is that even possible?” Song Ha-Eun frowned in doubt.

It sounded nice in theory, but bursting the sewers to flood an underground lair seemed more like fantasy.

“

Hmm

. I’m skeptical too,” Isabella added with a frown. “Even if you did break the sewers, I doubt it’d flood the entire station.”

At most, the water would rise to ankle height. Completely flooding the tunnels would require something like an intense monsoon that could overflow a river or something.

“

Huh?

I never said I was going to flood the station.”

“Sorry?”

“I told you, we just need to flow water into the lair.”

Isabella cocked her head in confusion. “Even so, it doesn’t have a real reason to come out.”

If water didn’t actually flood the lair, would the dragon really come out? Sure, ankle-deep water would annoy a human, but that amount would be like someone accidentally spilling a drink on the floor for a dragon that big.

“No, it’ll come out,” Kwon Oh-Jin confidently said.

If the dragon truly possessed human-level intelligence, then it would have no choice but to come out.

“Think about it. How long do you think the sewage treatment system has been out of order?” he asked.

“What?”

“The dragon destroyed this city around six years ago.”

What was sitting in the sewers now wasn’t just plain old water.

“It’s six years’ worth of filthy sewage.”

Song Ha-Eun and Isabella’s expressions froze.

“So basically...” Song Ha-Eun pressed her forehead in disbelief. “You wanna dump six-year-old poop water into that bastard’s lair?”