Used to Strengthen Lifelong Luck - Chapter 63 (63/196)

Part 15. Hunting the Defectors (2)

Forty days spent since his confrontation with Shamushion.

During that time, Ted had searched for a great deal of information.

The specific military strength between the two nations. The specific situation of each territory. And, of course, information on those who would roam about to seize money and profit through this war—the defectors.

But that didn’t mean Ted could know all one hundred out of one hundred things. Because of that, Ted had failed to recognize a defector user named … who was ranked in the domestic top thousand.

‘I never thought, and yet these bastards…….’

But the moment he saw the nine powerful NPCs blocking him, one piece of information he had searched for came to mind.

It was the story concerning the .

The Karon Kingdom was large, and boasted well over a hundred users who were considered top-tier, at level 600 or higher.

Among them, the famous explorer-ranker had personally encountered the rumored , and as a result, had found out a few things about them and posted the information online.

‘Danekkeo said they were ancient weapons created a thousand years ago in the game’s lore.’

Their combat prowess was similar to that of an NPC of the same level.

But the problem was their endless vitality.

Regarding that, Danekkeo had put forward the theory that they possessed a unique that utilized as life force.

That was where Ted’s doubts began.

Inner energy. In user terms, experience points.

Experience points accumulated in the hearts of characters and NPCs, a force that strengthened the physical body of both NPCs and users. In other words, it was what leveled them up.

But to directly convert and use that as life force?

Even for Ted, who had played the game for ten years, it was unheard of.

‘They’re from a thousand years ago in the lore, and the Pixy Kingdom…….’

But there was one thing that came to mind.

Ted, who had memorized the entire history of Face Chronicle spanning hundreds of A4 pages!

As the keywords and <1,000 years ago> intertwined, a word naturally came to his mind.

‘Ancient ruins.’

That was it.

Those in the know probably all knew, but in the game’s lore, approximately 2,000 years ago, there was an era known as the .

Among them, the story of the Kingdom’s came to mind.

‘With an undying army… they threatened the surrounding kingdoms, didn’t they? Probably?’

It was a tale related to the ‘upcoming main scenario’ revealed by Face Chronicle.

And now.

Ted, who had fired the Charged Lightning and killed three users including Duffle, immediately took out a pill from his inventory and swallowed it.

It was the Reflector Pill he had purchased alongside doping potions not long ago, which reduced the cooldown of C-rank or lower skills to one second once a day.

As Ted swallowed the pill, his body completed its . Soon, ten red bars appeared above his field of vision. The duration of the connection, disappearing one per second.

Ted, who had gained white skin and horns through his connection with Shamushion. Soon, the status window that had been floating above the NPCs’ heads——vanished from his sight, and another status window rose in its place.

State: Complete Infestation

Level: 601 (Remaining Latent Energy)

State: Half Infestation

Level: 589 (Remaining Latent Energy)

….

The nine NPCs before Ted.

Those on the lower end were in the late 500s. The highest reached the 650s.

‘Jamnyeokchung? So that’s the ancient weapon that makes them immortal? But what’s this “Complete Infestation” thing?’

Ted shook his head. He didn’t have the luxury to think leisurely.

‘For now, I’ll just have to kill them all and see.’

While he hesitated and thought, precious two seconds flew by.

For the remaining eight seconds, Ted moved his musket with the intention of killing them, one shot per enemy.

In response, the NPCs charged at Ted with their weapons.

“Kill…… the target.”

“Kill.”

The tank wielding a greatsword was the first to swing his sword at Ted with a large motion. Like chopping firewood.

Ted slightly twisted his body to dodge and fired his first shot at the enemy.

Bang—!

The powerful bullet pierced through the tank’s body and burst out the other side.

Immediately after, two other NPC tanks wielding longswords thrust at Ted’s head.

Ted unfolded the and narrowly avoided both attacks, then fired his musket at one of them. This time, he aimed precisely at the enemy’s head.

The remaining fifteen were sleeping in his inventory now. The newly purchased Magic-grade caught on the mana orb inside the musket and caused a powerful explosion. And so, the bullet that had left Black and White lodged squarely in the head of the NPC who had failed to dodge in time.

He toppled over backward instantly. Soon, something orange and squishy burst out from his eyes and spread across the ground.

The NPC wielding the longsword was in the late 500s level-wise. Yet his considerable life force had vanished with a single headshot from Ted.

It seemed some kind of superhuman ability had activated in the meantime, but Ted’s damage was overwhelming, and the fallen enemy no longer moved.

‘What is that vomit-slime-looking thing?’

While deflecting the attacks of other incoming NPCs, Ted looked at the fallen longsword NPC in bewilderment.

An orange, sticky, liquid-type monster was moving around the fallen NPC.

Moreover, there was one more strange thing.

‘I took down an NPC, so why aren’t my experience points going up?’

What in the world was going on?

But this was no situation to ponder deeply.

Soon, powerful flame magic burst from the mage NPC’s two hands, blocking Ted in all directions. At the same time, a powerful arrow on the archer NPC’s bow shot toward Ted.

Light magic was cast throughout this cavern, so while it was dark, light was plentiful. The conditions to use the skill were satisfied.

Ted activated and soared high into the sky. He tried to use in preparation for the imminent fall. However, Steps of Light did not dissipate and remained active.

‘Ah, because I’m in a state, the duration of Steps of Light increased.’

Steps of Light, which was originally 3 seconds, seemed to have increased to about 12 seconds now. In other words, aerial combat had become possible for Ted.

‘First, I’ll scatter their attention. .’

Kiiii! Kiiii! Kiiiiih!

The summon spell used by Ted, who had a 43.9% connection rate to the Yukmangseongjwa, seemed to be applied at four times the strength. Soon, twelve Gold Goblins burst out and began fighting, tangling with the NPCs.

“Die……. Target…….”

“Kill.”

A heavy attack aimed at Ted, who was summoning goblins from midair, was fired. It was the powerful cannon shot of a cannon-shooter NPC.

Ted could not dodge and took the cannonball squarely to his side.

A window popped up.

Soon, the leg under the effect of swayed, and his speed began to drop rapidly. He was currently being treated as a , but unfortunately, his status abnormality immunity was not 100%, which was why this happened.

Then, as if they had been waiting, several NPCs began pouring their attacks onto Ted.

Starting with the skill, powerful skills of the type, like Charged Lightning, struck Ted’s body and head and exploded.

Stars flashed before his eyes.

‘Damn it…….’

Ted’s life force, which had been under classification for several seconds, was instantly drained by 60%. They had unleashed what could be called their sure-kill trump cards.

But Ted hadn’t just been taking hits during that time.

Ordinary users or NPCs stiffened in surprise while being attacked. No matter how much of a game it was, their bodies flinched.

But Ted was different.

When the flames obscuring his eyes died down slightly, he sniped one with precise aim. And when the knight NPC’s mace struck his left shoulder, he shot down another NPC.

‘Hmm, something’s strange.’

At the point when about two seconds remained on his connection. Ted saw something puzzling. The NPCs he had shot down, plus those felled by the Gold Goblins’ attacks, numbered eight. In other words, there should have been only one NPC left.

But now, five NPCs were still alive and moving.

‘There has to be a cause……. Ah, that!’

Looking closely, the orange liquid that had burst and splattered from the fallen NPCs was slowly crawling, re-entering the fallen NPCs’ eyes.

Ted stared intently at that scene during the precious one second that passed.

Soon, the NPC began to move again.

‘So that was the problem.’

It was the moment his doubt was resolved.

Above the fallen user, a monster-classified status window still floated with the name , and Ted had thought it strange. Because it was the status window of a dead NPC.

But that wasn’t it. The identity of those orange liquids that had squirmed out was precisely the .

That’s right. Because the monsters were occupying the NPCs’ bodies, whenever he looked at the NPCs, a monster’s status window had been floating above them.

State: Complete Infestation

Level: 541 (Remaining Latent Energy)

At the same time, the level on the status window floating above the knight NPC had dropped by about 40.

It was an astonishing situation.

Looking at that change in the status window, Ted made a hypothesis.

‘Jamnyeokchung. Are they really monsters that convert accumulated experience points into life force, like the posts online said?’

Even seeing it with his own eyes, he couldn’t believe it.

Monsters that used experience points as life force…….

It made sense that they had won in special warfare, given that the already powerful NPCs also had such high life force pools.

‘Anyway, the Connection will end soon.’

During the last second, Ted used . Yellow lightning gathered at his muzzle, building in momentum.

Soon, the pretty horns on his head began to crumble into dust with a rustle—.

At the same time, the white light enveloping his body also vanished. However, since had been cast while in the Connected state, its power seemed to remain.

“Goblins! Protect me!”

Kiiiiii! Kikikik!

Thanks to the Gold Goblins throwing themselves as sacrifices, Ted was able to complete safely.

Ted held the musket harboring the Charged Lightning and used to fly through the sky. He was not firing immediately, but finding the right angle.

An angle that could pierce through many enemies.

‘Around here.’

Pzzzzzt!!

Soon, the Charged Lightning was fired at a sharp angle.

The intense lightning tore through the bodies of numerous NPCs in its path and eventually pierced the cavern floor.

It was a status window that popped up the moment he killed one among the NPCs in the trajectory whose state had been written as .

Accordingly, in that enemy’s status window changed to .

A living NPC died and gave experience points.

At the same time, he was completely infested by the Jamnyeokchung.

‘By the way. Do Jamnyeokchungs not die?’

There was a regrettable point.

Just now, when firing the Charged Lightning, Ted had aimed at an angle to pass through the Jamnyeokchungs scattered on the ground.

But the Charged Lightning had passed through their bodies.

‘This isn’t a miss.’

It had literally passed through. It couldn’t deal any shock whatsoever.

Ted racked his brain. Charged Lightning was a skill, but its classification was strictly . It was merely a skill with the attribute.

‘So they completely ignore physical attacks…….’

Soon, the Jamnyeokchungs began crawling back into the shattered NPCs’ bodies. As they crawled in, the NPCs slowly began to reassemble their bodies. Broken bones and flesh aligned on their own, and torn skin began to mend by itself.

Watching that, Ted grimaced.

‘This is dangerous if it keeps up.’

The nine NPCs were slowly coming back to life.

To Ted, the truly frightening thing about Jamnyeokchung was their .

Even if their levels dropped each time they revived, if it happened like this, the battle would continue on and on.

Ted had no significant magic skills, so he couldn’t cut short such a protracted battle.

‘Can I win?’

No. Ted assessed it as impossible. had 15 minutes of cooldown remaining, and even if he killed them one-on-one, they would keep recovering as if pouring out of a factory. Over and over again.

‘Then I’ll have to run. Tch.’

A being that was difficult to kill completely. .

He had no choice but to plan for another day.

It was the moment Ted was about to use with an unpleasant feeling.

Kiik?

Ilkkie turned his head.

The other goblins had all been unsummoned due to their lack of combat skill, and the only goblins remaining were the three musketeers who had learned combat from Ted.

But among them, Ilkkie began to run, eyes shining.

“Hey. Hey. Hey you! Ilkkie!”

Surprised, Ted urgently called out to Ilkkie.

But…… Ilkkie ignored Ted’s words and soon dashed quickly toward the NPCs’ corpses.

What he was after was the Jamnyeokchung. He must have thought it was something like a squishy jelly.

‘No! You stupid Ilkkie, that’s not something you eat. What do you think will happen?’

The moment the surprised Ted hurriedly unfolded to grab Ilkkie.

Gulp—!

Ilkkie snapped up and swallowed the that had been riding inside the NPC’s body.