The Overlord of Blood and Iron

Translator: Leyy

Editor: Arya

Chapter 73. Puppeteer Raid Squad

They had to go. 

If only one of the girls of the territory that was mentioned before, Lana Lovely, was kidnapped, Kang Chul-In would not go himself.

It wasn’t right for a Lord to risk his life to save a life of just one commoner girl. But if it involved the lives of many kidnapped children, then it would matter, as it would involve the risk of losing the trust of the citizens.

And not only this, the quest offered +3000 exp, +2 Levels, 1 ticket of territory enrichment, and most importantly, the Epic Item: the Needle of the Empress.

Finally, this was also linked to the talking tree sap problem. There was no choice but for Kang Chul-In to start the expedition.

The next morning, Kang Chul-In, along with Dorian, Lucia, Nilus, and James rode on a horse, and headed towards the Talking Tree forest, under the watchful and hopeful gazes of the citizens.

“I will go first, so follow after 30 minutes.”

Kang Chul-In spoke, as he led his horse forward in a gallop.

“Milord, why don’t I go instead…”

“No worries, I have a plan.”

After quickly responding to Lucia’s question quickly, he headed quickly into the forest.

The reason for this was because he didn’t want to wear ear muffs.

For a grown man to go inside the Talking Tree forest was quite a pain. 

Wouldn’t it be embarrassing for yourself to realize your own true, hidden thoughts? And for this reason, ear muffs inside the Talking Tree forest was a must.

But the problem with this was that there was only one type of ear muff in the whole of the Laputa territory. And whoever wore that seemed to be cute, due to the sheep-shaped design.

If Kang Chul-In wore that, then he would be vulnerable to people laughing at him, and that was not something that he wanted as a Lord.

“Hmph…”

Lucia licked her lips in an unsatisfied manner, still staring at the disappearing silhouette of Kang Chul-In’s back.

“Why do you do that?”

Commander James asked cautiously.

“I could have seen milord’s cu… I… I mean… Never mind.”

Lucia mumbled, but soon returned to her cool, collected self.

“Nothing. It’s absolutely nothing.”

Although James was confused, he didn’t speak back to Lucia, who had the second highest position in the whole of Laputa.

At the same time, Kang Chul-In had to endure the constant talking of the Talking Trees.

And the talking trees even talked about the past, when Kang Chul-In had yet to come back with his Soul Backup.

‘It’s a good thing I came alone’. 

Even though the others wore ear muffs, there was still a chance that they could accidentally hear something. Just because of that small possibility, Kang Chul-In came into the forest alone.

Kang Chul-In didn’t rage at the constant mutterings of the Talking Trees, nor did he even respond to them. He wasn’t someone fainthearted, and could not be shook by these mere trees. However…

The Talking Tree who had touched Kang Chul-In’s reverse scale screamed, and the sap from it came flooding down. Kang Chul-In had gone and slashed the tree while it was talking.

No matter who it was, there was a limit to where someone could take. Whether it was a human, or a tree.

One hour later.

As the Raid Squad’ followed under Kang Chul-In’s lead, they took out their gadgets and gears used to climb down the cliff, and started going down carefully. 

Tat, Tahat!

But as the others were doing that, Kang Chul-In jumped from pointy stones to other pointy stones on the walls. 

“Sigh… is he even human anymore?”

Dorian saw this scene, gasped in shock.

Unlike the others, Kang Chul-In didn’t use any equipment to get down the precarious cliff. Kang Chul-In, with his overdrive on for a short burst of time, could make even Dorian, who was once part of the British special forces SAS, go slack in shock.

“We can’t lose to him! Let’s go, Jack!”

Muttering, Dorian hugged Jack, and followed behind Kang Chul-In, also without equipment.

He was the junior of the famous host of the Man vs Wild show, Bear Grills. There was no way that he couldn’t do what Bear Grills could. And not only that, he could also use mana.

“Urghh…”

Of course, he couldn’t go down the cliff like Kang Chul-In did, without the use of his hands.

“Ugh… I think my bones will break by the end of this.”

Bark Bark! 

Dorian was having a rough time, mainly due to his useless, competitive spirit.

“Sigh, I don’t think those two are normal at all.”

James said, shaking his head.

“Is that so?”

And saying this, Lucia also jumped down the cliff without safety equipment, grappling into the walls with her iron-hard fists. 

“Hmph… at least this it will be hard for this old man then. Hmph… Yes, I bet it is.”

But as he said that, Nilus used the magic spell ‘Fly’, getting to the bottom of the cliff the easiest out of all the members.

“… Oh god.”

James, who was left behind stared at the others at the bottom with envious eyes, staring at the others as if they were not human. And he also had to get down via ropes and equipment, something that he thought made him look lame.

“It’s humid in here.”

Kang Chul-In muttered, as he got inside the dungeon.

Just like Dorian had said, the dungeon was about 5m wide, and was very tightly packed. And due to the fact that it was pitch black, they couldn’t see what was in front of them.

Ting!

Abruptly, some letters came out in front of Kang Chul-In’s face.

[Laputa’s Soul Core Detected! Verifying… It is real.]

And out of the two swords that were placed in Kang Chul-In’s belt, one of them, which was the Soul Core of Laputa, started shining crazily. He had brought it just in case, but he didn’t know that this would happen.

[… Verification, Complete! Due to the entry of the Lord Kang Chul-In, the difficulty of the dungeon falls to ‘Level 50’.]

‘Going down to Level 50?’

Kang Chul-In once again looked at the difficulty of the quest.

‘Holy crap.’

Looking at these words, it would seem that the dungeon was originally made for Level 100.

He could well understand why there was a warning towards the ‘Fake Lords’. A level 100 dungeon could prove to be quite troublesome to even the Kang Chul-In of the past.

If he was to go in there right now, he would be absolutely annihilated.

‘This dungeon is insane.’

After being surprised by the high difficulty of the dungeon, Kang Chul-In started walking again.

“Be careful. These guys are super strong. I couldn’t even put up a proper fight.”

Dorain said as if nervous, holding up the two red gauntlets he had attached as weapons.

“Of course.”

Kang Chul-In nodded.

Shiiing!

And as he said that, Kang Chul-In took out a light pinkish ‘katana’ that he had bought before coming on the raid. 

This item was a unique item of the fire category, that was specialized for stabbing. And it costed 700 gold, and was something that he bought specifically for this dungeon, as he realized how difficulty of it.

“Lucia, stay with me.”

“Yes, milord.”

With a happy smile on her face, Lucia walked to the front of her group, conveniently protecting Kang Chul-In. It was the best formation, with Lucia as the tanker and Kang Chul-In attacking.

And as they walked around 5 minutes, the first battle began.

Rumble! 

It seemed like the cave was ringing. 

Then…

BANG!

The whole cave collapsed.

“Damn.”

And the second Kang Chul-In cursed out loud, couple tens of will’ o wisps stared at them.

“…They’re coming!”

And Kang Chul-In clasped the katana in his hand, ready for battle.

BOOM!

BOOM! BOOM!

And with loud footsteps, ‘they’ showed themselves in the dark.