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chapter 192




The village folks continued talking.
“It was annoying to act polite to that young bitch. I guess it’s actually good that she knows now. Her power remains the same even if she doesn’t have legs, right?”
“Won’t they get back together even if we cut them?”
“You idiot! Of course, we have to cauterize the parts. How the hell she’ll put them back together if all the cells are dead?”
“She’s pretty sexy, you know. I had a hard time keeping myself from touching her. Don’t you think she’s prettier than any other woman in town?”
“Hey, I will go at her first! Show some respect to the elder!”
They were talking about disgusting things as they approach Kim Youra. Kim Youra took out a small knife from her pocket. It was not a weapon that had a special effect. It was just a regular knife for self-defense purposes. In this kind of situation, having a knife was better than nothing.
As she had awakened, her whole body became strong. She thought she could handle the village folks even though they were awakened, too. The only problem was she never had combat experience. However, she could not let them get closer to her younger sister.
“I will stab you guys if you come closer,” Kim Youra warned.
“She says she will stab us!”
“Oh
 That’s so scary!”
The men made sarcastic remarks. To them, Kim Youra was nothing but their toy.
‘I should do something,’ Kim Youra calmly thought about how to escape the situation.
She had experienced many harsh things in life, so she did not panic easily. In these circumstances, it would be better to attack them first rather than wait.
Slash!
She lowered her body and scratched the face of the closest man. The wound the knife had caused was not deep, but it made him bleed.
“Sh*t! You crazy bitch!”
The man burst out. He clearly wasn’t expecting it from Kim Youra.
Still, Kim Youra was in a difficult situation. Yes, she had wounded the man, but it wasn’t a fatal one that would keep him from retaliating. Therefore, she still had to deal with eight of them.
“Holy Armor.”
She utilized a skill that could surround her body with divine power. Kim Youra had awakened as the Holy Woman, but she did not have any attack skills. She had only skills for defense or healing. Holy Armor was a unique-grade skill that could build protection around her, minimizing the damage. A normal awakened would not be able to even scratch her. Kim Youra jumped at them.
“W-what the? What is this?”
“Sh*t! I can’t cut her!”
The men panicked as their weapon did not pierce her skin. Meanwhile, Kim Youra threw her knife and stabbed one man’s thigh.
“Argh!”
The man dropped down. Kim Youra could have taken his life, but she didn’t. She stopped, believing that was enough.
“It works.”
Gulp!
She gasped for breath. For the first time, Kim Youra hurt people. She did not only do it for herself but also to protect her sister. It would be difficult to run away with her sister from these dangerous men. It was best to handle them now than later.
“Goddamn, you c*nt!”
At this point, the men couldn’t easily rush towards her. They thought she was a submissive woman, but it turned out she was a feisty one.
“What are you doing? She’s just a girl! Go get her, idiots!” the man with an injured thigh cried.
The men immediately prepared to attack again. They were a ragged bunch. A little mishap wouldn’t make them retreat.
Kim Youra sensed danger. She realized that once they had surrounded her, there was no way she would win. She had to act first.
Pant! Pant!
Kim Youra breathed heavily.
It was fortunate that the level of the awakened males was below average. That was why they only had been hunting humans, not monsters. However, Kim Youra was the Holy Woman. Her power was stronger than them.
If she had a little more experience, she would have handled this far easier. The men were getting desperate. As three of them fell, they couldn’t dismiss her strength anymore.
Kim Youra licked her lips and warned them, “I will kill you if you come any closer.”
It was the first time that she willingly attacked others. Her hands were trembling, but she held one hand with another to keep them from shaking. She glared at the men.
It was a world where only the strong survived. The weak were killed, or sometimes only able to survive when they recognized the strong ones.
“Hey! Why don’t you stop there?”
While she was confronting the five men, a voice was heard from behind. She turned around to see who it was. It was the man with an injured thigh. He held a knife at Kim Minji’s neck.
Normally, an ordinary person wouldn’t be able to move easily with a stabbed thigh, but Kim Youra had forgotten the fact that he was an awakened. An awakened had more strength in them than ordinary humans.
“Put your knife down. Okay? Otherwise, your sister will have a pretty mark on her neck.”
“Oh
”
People knew how much Kim Youra cared for her younger sister. The men now had the upper hand.
Kim Youra turned pale. If she dropped her knife, there would be no way to escape for her and her sister. However, if she did not do as told, her sister would be in danger.
“Come on! Drop your damn knife! Want to see her bleed now?” The man threatened, holding Kim Minji’s neck tightly.
“Stop! I will put it down. Please
”
Kim Youra shut her eyes and slowly put her knife down on the ground. Then the other men ran up to her, held her arms, and made her kneel.
Kim Youra had an intuition for her future. She thought she might be able to kill some of them with her making a frantic last-ditch effort. But even if she did so, her sister would not be safe.
“Please
 Don’t touch my sister, please.”
“Well
 That depends on how much you are willing to obey us. Isn’t that right, my friends?”
“Sure, sure.”
“We will stop before she dies.”
The man who held Kim Minji as a hostage shrugged and the others agreed, but Kim Youra could tell they were lying.
‘Oh, god. I should have just ignored the smell of blood
 I should not have come here and healed the people,’ she thought.
All good people died. The sinners were the only ones who survived. She knew it, but she wanted to believe there was still some goodness in people. She had never asked anything in return whenever she helped others. But it was especially hard for Kim Youra when despite all the good deeds she had done, terrible things kept happening to her.
― Do you want to contract with me?
At that moment, Kim Youra heard a voice in her head.
‘What’s this? Am I hallucinating?’ Kim Youra wondered.
― I am Rei. My father has given me that great name. If you make a contract with me, I will defeat all those humans.
It was a girl’s voice. She looked around, but no girl could be found.
― Quickly. Just say yes. It is not difficult at all.
Kim Youra might have been hallucinating, desiring to escape her current predicament. However, she was already on a dead-end.
“I will
I will contract.”
Whoosh!
As she spoke out, tiny flames appeared in the air.
“Fire?”
“Argh!”
The flames began to grow bigger and started to consume the men around. They were so powerful that their skin was quickly melted.
“W-what the hell? Damn it! What the hell is this?”
The village men died one by one. The one who put the knife into Kim Minji’s neck was in a panic. He tried to run away, but, with an injury, he couldn’t get that far.
“Argh!”
The flames burnt down the last man. Soon, they came back where Kim Youra was and transformed into a girl.
“Nice to meet you. Sorry, I had to take care of an urgent situation first before revealing myself to you. As I said before, my name is Rei. What is your name?”
It happened in an instant. Kim Youra had no idea what was going on, but she tried to compose herself and answered, “Youra
my name is Kim Youra.”
“Kim Youra! I look forward to your kind cooperation.” The beautiful girl smiled. Kim Youra noticed that her hair was made of flames.
***
I was watching them from afar. Intermediate-grade spirits had to sign a contract before they could be seen. However, since Rei had already contracted with me, she could show herself if she wanted to.
‘Thanks to Kim Youra, people will be aware of contracting with spirits,’ I thought.
Kim Youra was the Holy Woman. She would attract people’s attention everywhere she went. Moreover, people would get to know about spirits if Kim Youra worked with Rei.
I decided not to intervene and gave Rei full authority. The more the spirits contracted with humans, the stronger my forces would become.
“I wish there’s a way to obtain spirits with other attributes.”
To do that, I needed to raise the Spirits of Fire properly first. If I raised them well, other Spirit Kings would consider me to nurture their baby spirits.
Entering the World of Spirits was not difficult, so I could return some fully-grown spirits to Garatsh and claim some rewards from him as well. Many benefits awaited me as I raised spirits.
“Now I need to go see Maxium. Since Ufa and Ariel reached a cease-fire agreement at present, it’s the only time I can help him.”
Ufa had a stronger military force than Ariel, so I assigned Maxium to cut down Ufa’s force. Maxium had lost a lot of power while trying to impede Ufa. If I did not reinforce the troops with recruits, there would no longer be another chance.
“Five million points should be enough.”
I calculated the points I would use to buy additional troops for Maxium and moved back to the dungeon.
Troops could be purchased from the Achievement Store, too. There were quite a few kinds because of the Hell Lord’s Treasure Warehouse, but some of them had not been unlocked yet.
‘There are some categories for the items in the warehouse. Hmm
 Some categories are locked. I need to use a lot of points to open them.’ I cupped my chin as I considered what to do.
The Hell Lord’s Treasure Warehouse had several separate storages in it. Therefore, what I had seen was not the whole item. I had not opened them yet because it required a lot of points.
“Well, I haven’t used many points these days. I guess now is a good time to open it.”
As I moved my eyes, a long list came up.
[Sealed Storage List]
-Including the sealed storages, the items or monsters inside them could be purchased by points or achievement points.
Mysterious Weapon Storage: 1,500 achievement points or 2,500,000 points
Unknown Secret Storage: 2,000 achievement points or 3,200,000 points
Scrolls Storage: 1,000 achievement points or 2,000,000 points
Skeleton Soldiers Storage: 2,500 achievement points or 4,000,000 points


I had about 10,000 achievement points. My normal points were around 15 million. I could not unlock all of them, but opening one or two would not be burdensome for me.
“Maxium needs soldiers. Skeletons will be perfect.”
There were not many types of skeleton soldiers on the point store. This was because most wizards were reluctant to disclose their methods of creating them. There was a high probability that there would be uncommon skeleton soldiers in the Hell Lord’s Treasure Warehouse.
“I guess I have to open the Skeleton Soldiers Storage.”
[4,000,000 points have been used to unlock the Skeleton Soldiers Storage.]
[From now on, the list of skeleton soldiers in the Skeleton Soldiers Storage will appear in the Achievement Store.]
I nodded. I planned to save my achievement points, so I used the normal points. Soon, another list appeared.
[Skeleton Soldiers Storage]
Skeleton Warlock: 100 achievement points or 100,000 points
Skeleton Guardian: 300 achievement points or 400,000 points
Chaos Soldier: 1,000 achievement points or 1,300,000 points
Bone Dragon (2): 3,000 achievement points or 4,000,000 points