Mirror World: Destined Return

A dozen giant modified carriages rolled along a darkening road in the mountains. Because they were closer to a cart carrying a giant box rather than a carriage, they were more like small container trailers. Not only that, but people were pulling the carriages instead of horses.

A party of roughly a hundred people guarded the carriages, carrying out a mission to safely transport people from Casablanca in the fourth zone to Lunatic in the fifth zone.

“When’s the shift change?”

“It’s five minutes away.”

“Dammit! Why am I carrying a cart like a goddamn cow?!”

“You’re more than welcome to leave if you have a problem with it, fucker. High-paying jobs like this don’t come often, you know?”

The party’s name was Speed Racer. They were not an official clan, but one of the many express parties that would only stick together for a month before the Night of the Full Moon began.

“I wish it were the Night of the Full Moon every month. That way, we could rake in Coins without even going to dungeons.”

“Kekeh, I second that. It’s a shame we only get to do this once a year.”

“Not just that, but it’s gotten way easier now that humanity is also reclaiming fourth zone cities.”

“I might as well enjoy myself in the Capital for once after this is over. What else am I gonna do with all this cash?”

“Sounds good, but I heard the Capital is a shitshow these days.”

As the Speed Racer party members chatted among one another, a robust man with yellowish-brown skin leading the party at the front shouted, “You there! Shut the hell up and stay alert to your surroundings! If a Uluhatu-rank Chaos gets drawn to your voices, you guys will be the first I’ll throw to it as bait!”

“Sheesh, there he goes again.”

“At least he has the skills to back himself up.”

“Yeah. He may be an Irregular, but he might get himself in the ranking if given the right attention.”

The only reason their party had zero casualties on their four round trips between Casablanca and Lunatic was their leader, the Indian man, Sanjay Dutt. He was a master of his pair of chakrams, a disc-like throwing weapon, which he used to defeat a boss-level Uluhatu-rank Vampyr single-handedly and earn absolute control over the party and its members’ trust.

Getting on his bad side meant that they would be kicked out of the Coin-raking express life, so the chattering members shut their mouths and heightened their senses to remain alert.

“Huh?” expressed a man in the volante position as he stared at his D Weapon, Speed Gun. The number recorded by the Speed Gun was rapidly rising. “Halt! Something’s approaching!”

“Halt!”

“Halt!”

The halt signal quickly spread throughout the party, stopping all the carriages.

“One-fifty... Two hundred! What insane speed! Whatever it is, it’ll be here soon!”

“Avant-garde tanks! Be ready!” Sanjay commanded.

The enhancer and transformer tanks set up a defense line as the sound of whatever was approaching them grew louder.

“Urgh, are they those Vampyr bastards again?”

“Don’t falter! They’re just a bunch of Chaos monsters that die from getting their os destroyed! We’ve killed them countless times!”

Just like how a human Invasive Chaos was known as a Body, a vampire Invasive Chaos was known as a Vampyr. Of course, Vampyrs were much stronger and faster than Bodies since they were the corrupted form of an intermediate race. Hence, the humans anxiously waited for the enemies to get closer.

Around twenty beings finally jumped out of the bushes in the darkness, but they were not the Vampyrs that the Speed Racer party had expected. Each of them had grey fur, sharp teeth, the stench of a wild animal, and eyes gleaming with Beast Force and bloodlust.

“Awoooo—!”

“T-those are—”

“Wolf beastfolk!”

The wolf beastfolk, who had run here on all fours, stood up on their hind legs, showing off their muscly body that easily surpassed two meters.

“Grrr, who the hell are these guys?”

“They’re not vampires.”

“They’re humans. A weak race.”

One of the wolf beastfolk who seemed to be their leader walked forward. He carried a golden shield on his back, two longswords and four daggers at his waist, and was wearing a heart guard and steel knee pads.

“Sniff, sniff, this scent... belongs to vampires, without a doubt. Are you transporting vampires? asked the wolf beastfolk leader.

“We are not, but we have killed over a hundred Vampyrs,” Sanjay replied.

“Vampyrs, not vampires? Are you saying that I’m wrong? Impossible. What do you have in there?” the wolf beastfolk asked confrontationally.

Sanjay frowned as he said, “We are Speed Racer, a human party, and I am its leader, Sanjay Dutt. Who are you to think you can get in our way and order us around?”

“Kekek! I heard humans have a chip on their shoulders now that they’re part of that Underground or whatever it was, and it looks like it’s true. Who am I, you ask?” The wolf beastfolk unleashed thick Beast Force and continued, “I am the Grey Wolf, Gilles Garnier, a lycanthrope of Clan Sol, led by the second-ranked beastfolk of Barbaria, Master Pseraslav!”

“Barbaria? Of the Sixth Lord, Modak?”

“Urgh, I’ve heard of Pseraslav, the Sun Wolf King! He’s twenty-third in the world ranking—a monster.”

“What are they doing here? I heard wolf beastfolk and vampires are hostile to one another.”

The humans’ faces paled, losing all morale from hearing the name of a World Ranker that they knew they couldn’t handle. They might have been able to stand tall if their World Ranker, Lee Kang-San, were still alive, but he was now gone.

Sanjay groaned as he remarked, “Our party is transporting humans from the human city, Casablanca, to the vampire city, Lunatic. Our guests are on those carriages.”

“Gehehe, I get it now. Because of the Night of the Full Moon, right? How pathetic,” Gilles said.

The wolf beastfolk cackled, and the humans could do nothing but bite their lips. They knew that the beastfolk could never understand the inferior races’ desires to grow stronger, even if they must become Canis.

“We will inspect those carriages,” Gilles said.

“Denied. The guests inside have paid us Coins, and we have a duty to protect them,” Sanjay declared.

“Are you saying that you will fight us, human?”

“There is no reason why we shouldn’t. You aren’t Pseraslav, after all!” Sanjay shouted as he grabbed two discs with each hand. They were chakrams, with razor-sharp edges.

Gilles sniffed as he activated a detection skill.

[Activating Skill: Smelling Potential.]

“Sniff, sniff! Oh? Those chakrams have A-rank potential, don’t they?” he asked, staring greedily at Sanjay’s chakrams as he licked his lips.

His subordinates rolled their eyes, used to their boss’s behavior.

“Grrr, the boss’s bad habit is acting up again.”

“He gets completely sidetracked whenever he smells a good item.”

“He has such a good nose for items.”

“What are you waiting for?! Hurry up and inspect the carriages!” Gilles ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s go.”

Around a dozen wolf beastfolk, roughly half of the group, simultaneously dashed toward the carriages.

“W-what do we do?”

“What do you think?! Stop them!”

“Dammit! This wasn’t part of the contract!”

The party was in complete disarray, with some frozen in panic, some shouting, and others backing up to flee. There was no such thing as camaraderie among them since profit was the only thing that brought them together.

“Dammit!” Sanjay shouted as he was about to stop the wolf beastfolk running to the carriages.

However, Gilles stood in his way as he said, “Why don’t we have some fun together?”

They got us! Sanjay thought as he bit his lip.

His plan had gone awry. He had planned to use their numerical advantage to intimidate the beastfolk and steer the situation toward a negotiation, but their enemies had no intention of negotiating from the start.

I can’t stay in this business anymore if word of my failure starts going around!

Sanjay twirled his Phantom Chakrams as he steeled his resolve. He needed to kill the wolf beastfolk leader as quickly as possible and reinforce their defenses.

Gilles noticed Sanjay’s intentions, baring his sharp teeth as he snorted. As the trigger for their clash was about to go off at any second, something neither of them had expected occurred. A steel wire swirled around the carriages out of nowhere as if protecting them and sliced only the wolf beastfolk into tiny pieces.

As deathly silence filled the dark mountains due to the unexpected events, the door of the carriage in the middle opened, and two men walked out.

“Why must the elderly step up? I thought Asians respected their elders.”

“There is also an Asian proverb that states the one who tied the knot must untie it. You’re the one who brought them here, so you deal with it.”

“Do you have proof that I brought them here?”

“You’re a Canis, aren’t you? Of one of the Seven Purebloods, no less. Of course, you would reek.”

The robed man and the man in a hoodie spoke leisurely to each other.

“That aside, Gilles Garnier, huh? I’ve heard the name before,” the man in a hoodie said as he stared at Sanjay and Gilles.

***

“Grrrrr! What is the meaning of this?!” Gilles shouted in rage due to his subordinates’ deaths.

Seong-Hwi ignored him and said to Gerard, “Not a single one can escape.”

“I know,” Gerard said as he leaped into the air and manipulated his D Weapon, Steel Piano Wire.

[Activating Unique Skill: Artisan’s Tuning - Manuscript Paper.]

The Steel Piano Wire fluidly unraveled and wrapped the surroundings, blocking all escape routes by creating a steel wire cocoon in the blink of an eye.

“Sorry for interfering with your business,” Seong-Hwi said as he approached Sanjay.

“Who... are you two?” Sanjay asked, feeling his power leaving his body as he looked into Seong-Hwi’s boundless abyssal eyes.

He was not a recruiting agent, so he never met his guests. Hence, he had never seen the two men who had come out of the carriages, nor did he know who they were.

What are those sons of bitches doing, taking monsters like these as guests?! Sanjay inwardly cursed the recruiting agents.

However, he was also curious about why such powerful individuals would employ them when they wouldn’t need their protection.

“My name is Cheon Seong-Hwi.”

“Cheon... Seong-Hwi? Gasp! Could it be... SS?!”

Sanjay recalled the name that had been heating the Network lately—Cheon Seong-Hwi, the new Rank 1 human.

Just then, Gilles began sniffing uncontrollably. “WHOOOAAAAA! Y-YOU HAVE SOME ENORMOUSLY VALUABLE TREASURES ON YOU!”

He could smell intense sweetness from the man in the hoodie. This scent only came from those with items of at least S-rank potential. Not only that, but there wasn’t just one.

“Slurp! Hand them over! Now! They’re my items now!” Gilles unsheathed the two longswords at his waist and charged at Seong-Hwi while drooling.

“Oh, no!” Sanjay assumed a battle stance as he prepared to throw his chakrams.

However, Seong-Hwi extended his arm to stop him and said, “Let me do it. Why don’t you go assist that spunkless old man?”

“Pardon?”

Sanjay turned in the direction that Seong-Hwi was pointing with his index finger. Forget spunkless, the old man was ferociously slaughtering the wolf beastfolk.

“What an interesting turn of events,” Seong-Hwi mumbled as he stared at the charging Gilles.

The name Gilles Garnier was rather famous throughout human society. He was the wolf beastfolk who had illegally excavated a human dungeon and obtained the Silver Bracelets of Queen Consort Muryeong.

The Union belatedly found out and requested that he return the artifact, but Gilles refused and killed hundreds of the Union’s pursuers to become infamous. He later became a beastfolk Ranker, and the Silver Bracelets of Queen Consort Muryeong became just as famous as Gilles to humans.

As a result, I became certain of the item’s potential and stole it from the National Museum of Korea.

Seong-Hwi stared at the silver bracelets on his wrists and mumbled, “Though that doesn’t make me thankful.”

[Activating Unique Skill: Symbol Embodiment.]

[Majestic Scepter, one of the symbols of No.4 The Emperor]

A scepter with a golden ankh cross on its end appeared in Seong-Hwi’s hand. He smiled demonically and mumbled, “A crazy mutt deserves a beating.”

***

The Speed Racer party members silently watched the scene that had unfolded in just a flash.

“Tsk, my clothes reek of blood now. I suppose I must get new clothes before I return to my lady,” Gerard said as he removed his black tailcoat jacket, wrung the blood out of it as if it were tomato juice, and put it back on after shaking it dry.

The people who had been staring at the old man then turned to the right, where a man in a hoodie was smacking a wolf beastfolk with a golden scepter as if he were a laundry item.

“Gurghhh... Kill... me,” Gilles mumbled.

“What did you say? I can’t quite hear you. Why don’t you try begging with a little more oomph?” Seong-Hwi said as he picked his ear.

A silver grey chubby hose came out of Seong-Hwi’s hoodie and absorbed Gilles’s equipment like a vacuum cleaner.

Pwoo! This is all so yummy, Daddy! He has so many yummy things! Take more from him! Bulgasal shouted as it munched on the items.

It was a relief that no one could understand Bulgasal. The duo was like a laundry service that cleaned one’s body, mind, and even their equipment.

“So, Pseraslav isn’t satisfied with the seat of the Tenth Fiend, and is aiming to become the Ninth Fiend? And he has currently infiltrated Lunatic?” Seong-Hwi asked.

“Urrrhhhhh... That is... correct... He said... that he would... rather kill... the Ninth Fiend... than deal with... the backlash,” Gilles said.

Seong-Hwi nodded as he thought, The former Tenth Fiend, Insectum the Insect King, was killed by the cooperation of several World Rankers, including Elementum.

It was only natural that competition for the vacant seat of the Tenth Fiend would be fierce. However, since whoever became the new Tenth Fiend wouldn’t have taken the place by killing the former Tenth Fiend, there would naturally be backlash.

The seat of the Ten Lords and Fiends isn’t just a ranking—it’s a symbol.

If Pseraslav were to become the new Tenth Fiend, there would be two beastfolk among the Ten Lords and Fiends, which would further increase Barbaria’s influence and power.

He would rather kill the Ninth Fiend than deal with the other races’ nitpicking, eh? How tough of him, Seong-Hwi thought, seeing similarities between himself and Pseraslav.

“Does he have an ace in the hole?” he asked.

“The... Sun Wolf King... has an absolute... advantage against... the Ninth Fiend... Maybe not for... all vampires... but... Gurghhh!”

“Dammit,” Seong-Hwi cursed, sensing that Gilles’s brain had fried, unable to overcome the Majestic Scepter’s brainwashing. He bestowed what little mercy he had on Gilles by squashing his head with his foot and smiled. “That’s your reward for the useful information.”

Seong-Hwi had a feeling that he would be able to earn what he wanted from the conflict between the Sun Wolf King, Pseraslav, and the Progenitor, Haema Sanguis. He turned around and was met with various responses.

“Hurghhh!”

“P-please spare us!’

“Hiccup!”

Seong-Hwi examined their reactions momentarily, then tapped the shoulder of Sanjay beside him and said, “What are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

“P-pardon?” Sanjay stuttered.

“You need to take me to Lunatic by the agreed-upon time, don’t you? Are you planning on running away with the Coins I paid you?”

“N-not at all! What are you waiting for, guys?! It’s getting late! Let’s go!” Sanjay hastily commanded, and the Speed Racer party members moved at lightning speed.

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