Chapter 459: The Second Clue 2
'Who is that?'
A monster with a skeleton body all over.
But compared to the skeleton, it was a rather huge monster in front of Ian.
Skeleton giant in a dark blue armor with an enormous pattern, like a cylinder.
Ian checked the name that was floating on its head.
-Skull Giant King: Lv 475
A huge skeleton body that had a shiny armor all around its body, it looked very solid at first glance.
Radeus's unusual summons had a much appealing look of the 'tanker'.
Ian was curious about it, but he had no time to think about it.
Because the battle had begun right away.
'Hmm, if I get Radeus, then I can know anything.'
The quest rewards were the Radeus Skull staff and the Dark Soul stone.
Guessing that either one of them could be related to the opponent, Ian wielded his spear.
Kwang- Kwang-!
Ian summoned all his summons and quickly moved towards Radeus.
The summons must be defeated to be summoned once again, that was the mark for the Warlocks, and that was because they came out after the cast.
Of course, the dark magician Radeus didn't allow Ian to get the access, but Ian who had gone through many battles knew the most expected skill pattern.
Ian took Halli to the close range of Radeus and broke the Dark Shield.
"Why aren't you a dark psychic?"
Ian's quick question made Radeus confused.
"Man, what do you mean?!"
"Nothing much, it is because of the experience?"
"...?"
In the meantime, it was regrettable that Radeus wasn't a psychic that would give Ian a 20x experience bonus.
The battle was getting fierce as the time passed but was clearly progressing much better than the battle of Lacamer.
Not because Radeus was weak.
He was a powerful epic monster, but he didn't have the ability to be differentiated from a normal dark magician.
In other words, the stats felt like a higher level of a dark magician.
No matter how powerful Radeus was, Ian's controls were great enough that he discovered the patterns already.
"El, Dragonic Barrier!"
"Okay, dad!"
The barrier absorbed concentrated deal, and waited for the summons to accumulate, then came a magic sweep of a cast at once.
"Bbookbbook-ah, Karceus. Breath. Pin, Smash!"
Kwaah-!
Ian had been carefully and skillfully dealing with the undead till now, which meant that Radeus was forced to feel helpless.
"This, human...!"
Inevitably, Radeus didn't have a specific manner to deal with.
No matter how high the stats were, the vitality was being cut everytime he took a step to counterattack.
The pattern of the skills that Radeus was utilizing was already what Ian had predicted.
However, if there was anything that was beyond the expectation of Ian's, then it was the undead with a crude name of 'Skull Giant King' whose vitality was much greater than assumed.
'What, what is with all these crazy summons? This is a meat shield. No, it is a bone shield?'
To match the size of it, the Skull Giant King had a very dull movement.
The attack pattern was incredibly simple and even seemed to have just one or two unique abilities.
'One provocation skill and an active skill for self-healing one. What is up with the incompetent summons?'
Of course, despite the intensive attacks from Ian, the undead summons endured it with the tremendous amount of vitality they had.
But, that was it.
The style of the summons was what Ian disliked the most.
'Phew, if I am asked to play with one of those guys, then it is no fun at all, so I'll fold the game in a day.'
It was too slow and there was no skill to take advantage of, so there was no way to control it.
Ian gave out orders while still thinking about the undead.
"Grrr, Soul Encroachment!"
"Grrr, Kwayy!"
[The Balrog of Destruction 'Grrr' attempted to infiltrate a fragile soul (Less than 5% of its vitality was remaining)]
[Successfully encroached the soul of the Undead Skeleton Warrior (Lv. 433)!]
[Successfully encroached the soul of Undead Dark Race (Lv. 425)!]
[Successfully encroached the soul of Undead Death Knight (Lv. 452)!]
(Syncopation)
[Total of 11 souls have been encroached.]
[During the Soul Encroachment, that target is moved by the command of the Balrog and all the attack power is increased by 30%. In addition, they will remain invincible until the Balrog dies.]
In the battle that included many, the 'Soul Encroachment' of Grrr was always handy...
"Ly, start the killing from Mage!"
"Okay, master!"
Ly triggered the 'Rage of Fenrir' and 'Dark Encroachment', it's an inherent ability and was also use to cut off the skeleton mage that was supporting the undead from behind.
"Kiyaaak!"
"Stop the Fenrir!"
As a result of all the familiars pouring out their abilities, Ian was able to finish the quest much easily than expected.
"Keu, to be taken down by human...!"
Radeus whose vitality was exhausted to the last bit fell down with anguish.
Ian laughed at the displeased looking guy.
"You lost to me because you carry such hard summons with you. It looks like you have got great leadership, but why bother raising stuff like that?"
Ian shook his head while pointing to the broken Skull Giant King, who was on the floor with no help.
Radeus, was quite responsive to the mockery of Ian.
"Keu, you think that I raised it because I wanted to raise him?!"
"Uh. What do you mean?"
"Some dumb piece of sh*t-smith had made that thing with some of his best materials, so I took it!"
"What?"
Ian responded to the unexpected response from Radeus.
Radeus was completely exhausted because of the vitality that was down.
Tring-!
[You have successfully cleared the quest 'Radeus Ambition (Hidden)'.]
[Obtained the item 'Underworld King Necklace (B) (Sealed)'.]
[Obtained the item 'Radeus Skull Staff (Legend)'.]
After completing the quest which was needed for getting the king's fragment, Ian's expression didn't seem that glad.
Probably because he wanted to find out more about the information in those incomprehensible words of Radeus.
'What? A blacksmith? Did he mean to say that the giant skull thing was made?'
All the words of Radeus were questionable.
However, there was one thing that was rushing to the mind of Ian.
After completing the Lacamer's rage quest, the item of 'Dark fragment bundle' came to his mind.
'Right! There was an item that I could assemble and make a summon!'
A special item that could be summoned depending on how it is used.
If the Skull Giant King was a familiar of the fragments, then he wouldn't even need leadership, which meant that Radeus had no reason to not use it.
"Ha, but for such garbage to be made out of the fragments..."
Approaching the collapsed skeleton giant—Ian kicked him once and shook his head.
Right then, system messages came into the sight of Ian.
Tring-!
[You have obtained an item called 'Dark Soul stone'.]
[If you use that 'Dark Soul stone' item, you can summon the fallen undead.]
[The surviving summon will be attributed to the user and will follow your orders.]
[Do you want to revive the Skull Giant King summon (Y/N)?]
[Once the summon is revived, the item Dark Soul Stone will disappear.]
After reading the entire message, Ian shook his head almost reflexively and canceled the use of the item.
"Uh, do you think I'm crazy? To use the only one chance to bring back a junk like this?"
Then came another two lines of system messages.
[You have canceled the use of item Dark Soul stone.]
[The Skull Giant King summon is completely lost.]
Ian shook his head with a grin.
However, it was possible to see how the item 'Dark Soul Stone' was used.
'The next time I fight a nice undead summon, I will use it.'
It was the first time for Ian to see the 'Skull Giant King'.
It seemed to be unlikely for it to be seen in the human world, but he was under the thought that he could see a lot of them when he went to the underworld.
It was clear that one day a nice summon would make an appearance in front of Ian, so the Dark Soul Stone wouldn't go to waste.
"Hu, should we go inside and see?"
Ian who entered the engine room lowered the lever and walked up to the stairs with careful steps.
The summoned summons for the battle against Radeus, they all returned to the subspace, except for the original set.
From then, they were going to enter the core area of the castle.
"You can cheer up Ian. Now that Radeus has been killed, you can remove the psychics without much difficulty."
Encouraged by the words of Remus, Ian smiled.
"Okay, and trust me."
Like Remus had said, the psychics were much weaker than Radeus.
Ian easily defeated all the five psychics and managed to smoothly move to the kings' castle where the puppet king was residing.
'Isn't this a bit too easy? It is a triple S quest difficulty... but compared to Lacamer it is a bit too low.'
Ian was in the wrong thought.
Ian was able to easily clear the quest because of a warlock Lugarix of level 500.
There were many warlocks above the level of 450 in the Elrika kingdom, and if they were with some other warlock other than Lugarix, then going against the psychics would have been tough.
None of the users, even those of the warlocks, one with a level 400 wasn't there yet.
Anyway, since Ian arrived at the King's castle without any tension was almost at the end of the quest.
There was another Remus sitting on the throne with his eyes closed with robes of royalty.
Puppet Remus/Lv?
'Should I just kill off that guy now?'
Ian, who identified him, swallowed the desire into the stomach.
The level was hidden because it seemed like the opponent was stronger than Radeus.
In addition, Ian had come through the dungeon much easier than he had expected, so the last boss would be stronger.
Ian took careful steps toward him.
Remus who was behind Ian popped out his sword.
"The last one... can you leave it to me?"
"Huh?"
"That guy is an alter made out of my soul. In terms of the warlocks jargon, it is a Dummy."
"Uh?"
The story of a dummy—a scarecrow with no power to fight.
While Ian was shocked, Remus pulled out his sword.
Slash-!
The puppet Remus who was seated on the throne turned grey.
Ian saw the scene unfold with a blank expression.
'Uh... then... this is... the end?'
Even before the sword of Remus fell, Ian's eyes saw the system messages that informed him about the completion of the quest.
[You have successfully completed the 'The Puppet of the Elrika Kingdom (Hidden) (Connected)'!]
[Acquired the fame of 300,000!]
[You have earned the experience points of 597,089,812!]
(Syncopation)
[Your level has risen. You have reached the level of 400.]