Chapter 9: Keep the good things for myself (4)

Translator: miraclerifle

Bang!

A bright light flashed inside the cave. The artifact had submitted after being unable to handle Ju-Heon’s pressure. The snake and the pond each started to change shapes and turned into familiar silhouettes.

They were the real gold axe and silver axe.

‘They came out.’

Ju-Heon who was filled with evil intentions grabbed onto the axe silhouettes as if he had been waiting for this. They then started to turn into shapes that were perfect for Ju-Heon.

A message popped up at that moment.

[You have received the title of < Someone who has experienced a tomb > and a skill has been revealed.]

[Tomb Raider basic skill Tomb Exploration(F-Rank) has been awakened.]

It was a familiar message.

However, there was an unexpected message as well this time.

[You have received the title of, < Cruel Artifact Intimidator > and your dominance has increased while your affinity has decreased.]

Artifact Dominance: A+ (Great Conqueror)

Artifact Affinity: D- (Coercive)

Ju-Heon scoffed as he read that message. It was weird to see dominance and affinity popping up as systems, but he didn’t expect to receive such a title.

‘It’s good that my dominance has gone up but for my affinity to go down...’

However, he was not concerned. His affinity had fallen, but Ju-Heon actually thought this was better.

‘Artifacts look down on you if you become close to them.’

That was why Ju-Heon's experience told him dominance was more important than affinity.

‘It should be the same for this bastard.’

Ju-Heon inspected the gold axe and silver axe in his hands. The axe was not in the shape of an ancient axe you would find in old stories.

The gold axe looked more like a modern ice axe. The silver axe looked more like a shovel, but the blade was so sharp that it was closer to an axe.

In essence, they looked like a pickaxe and a shovel.

They were the most fitting forms for a Tomb Raider. That was why Ju-Heon started to laugh.

‘I'll need to test them out to see how useful they are.’

It happened as Ju-Heon was preparing to leave.

“Damn it! Where is the artifact?!”

Ju-Heon quickly hid after hearing a voice coming from the cave. Abe and Linda walked in looking like wet rats.

“I found it! It's the pond!”

Abe ran toward the pond that looked like a basin at the bottom of a waterfall with a bright expression. He seemed to know the details of this tomb.

That was obvious by how he threw a jar-shaped artifact into the pond without any hesitation.

Splash!

However, the gold axe and silver axe were already looted. There was nothing that happened.

Maybe that was the reason, but Abe's face that was full of expectations turned shitty as he got angry.

“Why is nothing happening?! The seer clearly told me to throw an artifact into the pond!”

However, there was nobody who would show him any sympathy. Even Linda who followed behind him looked confused.

However, her ears perked up after hearing the word, ‘seer.’

“Seer? The Japanese artifact user said that?”

“Tsk!”

“......Just what kind of artifact is the Japanese seer using?!”

“You think I would tell you that?!”

“There’s no reason not to tell me!”

Linda tried to gather any information she could get but Abe who seemed to have a loose-lips didn’t slip up.

On the other hand, Ju-Heon who could easily hear their argument clicked his tongue. He was hiding nearby.

‘Looks like Japan’s Future Diary user had a prophecy about this tomb.’

That should be how Abe knew the way to clear this tomb. The person using that artifact was a regular student, however, Prince Shotoku's Future Diary was an S-Grade(Legendary Hero-Grade) artifact.

‘The higher grade artifacts are all nuisances.’

Abe, who had been pestered by Linda for a while, started to get angry.

“Damn it! Stop asking about our seer! That’s not important right now! This, and the fact that the tomb entrance suddenly opened means that someone could have beaten us to it!”

Linda used her flashlight to search the area.

“There are definitely signs that someone was here......”

“Exactly! I knew there was someone who beat us here!”

Abe, who had only been looking at the ground started to look around the area as well.

Ju-Heon started to think. He needed to get past them to leave the cave. Of course, it wasn’t important to Ju-Heon whether he ran into them or not.

The only thing would be that things might get a little more annoying with them remembering his face?

‘Should I just get rid of both of them?’

Ju-Heon had a cold gaze as he lifted the Egyptian priest’s knife.

Anybody he met in a tomb were enemies that were also aiming for the artifact. Betraying people inside tombs happened often, as well as killing people inside tombs.

Abe was walking toward Ju-Heon’s hiding spot without knowing that Ju-Heon had his knife in his hand.

“Damn it, see if there is anyone nearby!”

One step, two step.

“I need to at least drag the bastard who beat us to Japan with me!”

Ju-Heon was showing murderous intent waiting for Abe to get closer. But as he pointed the knife and was about to activate it...

[Knife possessed by an Egyptian Embalmer (C-Grade(General-Grade) - Consumable Artifact)]

[Remaining Uses (54/100)]

Some motion graphic text appeared above the knife.

Ju-Heon started to frown after seeing the message. It was because of the limited uses of the knife. He then looked at Abe and Linda before changing his plans.

‘Yes. I can’t waste two uses for something like this.’

Furthermore, causing such an incident in a peaceful era might get him wrapped up in something much worse than them seeing his face.

He didn’t even have enough time to go enter tombs, so he did not want to do anything that might drag him down.

So, he picked up a rock.

He then threw it toward the opposite direction. The rock landed inside a stone path and created noises inside the quiet cave.

Tap, tap!

Abe and Linda jerked their heads in shock.

“What is that noise?”

“Over there!”

Ju-Heon channeled his dominance into the axes in his hand once they turned. These axes were the ones to create this tomb, so there was something he could do with them.

One of them was the following.

‘Tomb close!’

Once Ju-Heon gave the order, the axes flashed and the area started to shake as if there was an earthquake.

Kugugu!

“W, what the?!”

Abe and Linda started to scream as the tomb started to crumble along with the shaking ground.

“We need to hurry up and get out!”

“But where is the exit?!”

“Let’s at least run back the way we came!”

Ju-Heon was running toward the exit alone while the two of them were shouting in fear. Maybe it was because it was a newly formed tomb, but the path to the exit did not have any traps and was not far.

‘Over there.’

Boom!

Ju-Heon opened the lid to the place he saw glimpses of light. The exit to this tomb seemed to be connected to a manhole nearby. He didn’t see many people around here in the nearby neighborhood shopping district.

He heard the tomb crumbling once he made it completely out of the manhole.

Booooooom!

The suspicious tomb that had taken over the villa complex caused a dust storm as it disappeared into the ground. It looked as if it was being absorbed by the ground. The villas that had been buried by the Tomb Appearance started to reappear.

Some of them were damaged but most of the buildings were fine because it was a low-grade tomb. The more dangerous tombs could reach the level of natural disasters.

Ju-Heon watched the villas reappear before checking the status of the axes he brought out of the tomb.

They would need to be restored to use their full abilities because he just brought it out of the tomb, but they were still usable.

He would need to check what they could do but his instincts were telling him it had to do with bringing wealth to him.

‘Well, I guess you could call this a success.’

Ju-Heon started to laugh.

However, there was someone who was about to go crazy, unlike the laughing Ju-Heon.

“What did you say? There was a prophecy about it? It said there was a Korean person who would beat us to the artifact?”

Abe who barely managed to escape the tomb was about to explode while taking a call. ‘I followed the prophecy into the tomb but what?’

“Hey! How can you tell me that now?! How can you hold back the most important piece of information?!”

The old man on the other side of the call responded as if it wasn’t his fault.

[You know what kind of person the Future Diary artifact user is.]

“The person couldn't read the Kanji again?” [1]

[Exactly.]

“Ow!”

Abe would have probably hung up on this expensive international call if he wasn't talking to a senior administrator. However, nothing would change even if he blamed the person. The problem was that bitch who uses Prince Shotoku’s Future Diary.

‘It’s because it fell into the hands of such an airheaded bitch!’

< Prince Shotoku’s Future Diary > was the type of artifact that came out of the tomb on its own to find a master. However, the Future Diary picked a terrible master for some reason.

It had chosen a female high school student who was a thug and forget ancient text, could not read Kanji properly.

She would sweat a lot when the Kanji would get even slightly difficult and could not decipher the message especially because it was in ancient text.

The problem was that the text inside the Future Diary was something only the master could read, driving the others around her crazy.

“We stuck a bunch of scholars next to her! We ordered her to copy it down and hand it to them if she couldn’t read it!”

[Well......apparently the contents quickly change because the future is ever changing.]

“Just tell her to shut up and write it all down!”

[She wrote down everything she could but she missed the important part because she doesn’t know which are the important prophecies]

“Damn it!”

Honestly speaking, the information about this tomb was something she barely found out as well. It was no wonder they couldn't say that Japan's seer was omnipotent.

[Anyway, there should be some good news because she is reading your future. Just keep up the good work like you have been doing. Keep the artifacts you took from the Korean safe until our research team comes over.]

Abe had no choice but to cool his boiling temper and hang up.

He couldn’t get on an airplane with the artifacts he got in Korea.

‘Those stupid Koreans won’t know if I stole the artifacts anyway.’

However, his superiors were telling him to be as cautious as possible. He mentioned about how the Koreans would annoy them by asking for an apology or not if he happened to get caught.

‘Hmph. These bastards say that we plundered the cultural items we won fairly in auctions so I wouldn’t be surprised.’

Abe was thinking that they threw a fit about some useless relics Japan took during the Japanese colonial era, so they would throw quite the fit for these artifacts that give people special abilities. Abe's superiors often had weird logic like this. Of course, Abe agreed with them as well.

Anyway, the information he received was that the person who took the gold axe and the silver axe was a Korean person. In addition, that Korean knew a lot about tombs for some reason.

‘She said he's a bastard who can gobble up our Japan?’

The Future Diary used poetic words to say the following.

- There is a great danger that can gobble up Japan, a great but rough star to rise in the neighboring nation.

Abe repeated that to himself before starting to scoff.

“A star my ass! He's just a Joseon bastard!” [2]

Well it was fine.

If it is a bastard who knows about tombs, he would show up at the next one as well.

“I'll fuck him up and hand him over to Japan then.”

Abe started to laugh.

Too bad he had no idea about the man who was his opponent.

1. Japanese word for Chinese characters

2. Joseon was the last dynasty of Korea and the most influential on Korean culture before Japan took control