Volume 9 / Chapter 253
TL: LightNovelCafe
Editor: Hungry Panda
Hundreds of tentacles are wrapped around Blood Lord’s blade thorns to ensure that he won’t sink in the sea, and Beholder is safely on his back with his body cooling.
His body had overheated under extreme tension, putting him in a cold sweat. As the threat disappeared, his tension and sweat evaporated.
“We – we made it.”
They ran from Parasite King for several days.
It had been a close call.
Beholder and Blood Lord were at ease in terms of their body because they did not fight. But Red Eye and Inferno are practically on the brink of death.
As they ran away, they occasionally stopped Parasite King’s chase. If they had left Parasite King alone behind them, they wouldn’t have been able to get away.
Red Eye and Inferno are powerful mutants, but they fall short in front of Parasite King who has become a Disaster. They were almost infected multiple times.
They would have died if Beholder hadn’t tampered with mental disturbance in the middle. It was too much to do continuously, so they just blocked him by taking jabs.
Parasite King also doesn’t have a lot of experience in battle, so he hadn’t been able to act to the full of his ability.
He could be described as a strong child who is smart.
If he had as much experience in battle as Red Eye and Inferno did, they would have gone from a terrible situation to the worst.
Due to those efforts, the four of them got away from Parasite King, and Beholder is crossing the sea with Blood Lord as a boat.
A stingray that is smaller than Blood Lord but still dozens of meters large, crosses the water next to Blood Lord. It is Bergon, Red Eye’s pet.
Bergon stays in the ocean closest to wherever Red Eye is, even if he doesn’t call it. It doesn’t have a separate home.
When Red Eye came toward the sea, it felt his energy, waited, took him and Inferno on, and went off at the speed of sound.
The four of them aren’t enough to take on Parasite King. Under the assumption that the seaway hadn’t been there, they could run away on land though they would have gotten caught at some point.
‘This is my territory, my world.’
These are the last words that Parasite King left Red Eye’s group with.
He can be active in the ocean as well, but there are limits.
He can’t move as fast as Blood Lord and Bergon can, so he just left them and went back.
Hee hee!
When the cocoon exploded and Parasite King hatched, Beholder read what Parasite King’s ambitions were in passing.
It has surpassed the limit of its species, but a gap showed from the beginning.
As time passed after hatching, his mental state became more firm. Later, it was like looking at a sturdy wall. He had become complete both physically and mentally.
What he wanted was simple.
He wanted a place to call home. Parasites are helminths. They cannot live if not for parasitism. They are just fast as bugs in their parasitic states, they are incredibly weak.
If he doesn’t create a home as the king, the parasites won’t have a guaranteed survival. That ambition had been expressed.
Parasite King’s goal is clear. In Beholder’s mind, Parasite King won’t become a problem if they give him Africa and don’t bother him. Parasite King will be satisfied with what he has been given and live on.
“Let’s see what Her Highness says…”
White Queen is the one who ordered them to watch the cocoon in the first place. She had hoped that Parasite King would become an ally, but it’s already too late for that. It is discomforting that they left a honeycomb behind, but there is no need to kick it for no reason.
As long as it doesn’t challenge them first, it is better to leave this matter until the end.
First, they need to report on the cocoon.
White Queen is smart.
Beholder believes she will think the same way he does.
69 Mission Reorganization (1)
Borteth sits in his laboratory and thinks. His expression changes every hour. There is no specifying it.
He repeatedly thought of the suggestion Jigneon made a few days ago.
Jigneon had basically given him trouble and a solution.
Jigneon gave him one of each. But the solution was pretty superior for the trouble he had given.
“Tyrant’s death is a big loss… but how enticing.”
He is a stupid bastard.
Borteth had given him strength, but Tyrant had died without even being able to fully use it. When he first heard of this, he thought he was going to go crazy from anger.
Because Tyrant died?
There’s that too, but there was more disappointment in losing something he had put so much effort into. And from one of Jigneon’s tricks at that.
They are both supervisors, but it is too much to challenge the authority of the one in charge.
He used a mission with Cha Jun Sung as the axis to kill Tyrant. He has fully shown his intention to block interference with interference.
If this happens, the supervisors must fight amongst themselves. This isn’t something that Borteth wants either. It would be stupid to take on the two of them by himself.
If he faces off with Jigneon, he will have to go up against Gabenu as well. Until now, Jigneon had refrained from collision with warnings.
But with this, he basically declared that he would get involved. As the antagonism grew, Jigneon made a proposal.
‘We’ll change the terms of upgrading.’
The existing system is to complete advancement until level C. But beyond that, they applied the system in order to distinguish between good and bad.
Because of this, those who lacked in ability were unable to advance, and were left in the same place. So countless Lifers got stuck in levels B and C.
‘We’ll change it so that a Lifer who completes an advancement mission of the same level 3 times, gets to advance. We’ll tune the details.’
In order to resolve the stagnant Lifers, Jigneon discussed large measures to reorganize Lifer Mission with Borteth and Gaben.
It isn’t difficult to configure advancement missions until level C, but the number of missions decreases from level B.
This goes without saying for advancement missions in particular.
He expects this to be applied 100%, but they haven’t talked specifics yet.
All they have is a basic frame of what they are going to do.
But this much is for sure. Contribution points are being abolished.
Once this is put into practice, the stagnant Lifers will come swarming in. All they need to do is complete three missions.
‘The only restrictions will be so that they can’t advance just by getting help from top level Lifers…’
Since they can’t do buses, they need to figure it out on their own, whether they live or die. Advancement level is high even if contribution points are abolished, so a lot of people will die, but much more Lifers will be able to advance going forward.
Currently, it is estimated that more than 95% of Lifers are level C. No matter how many die, they are always filled up and remain on the fringe of 10 million.
Excluding a certain fraction, they show no signs of advance even over time.
There is nothing to test with Lifers below level C now.
Level B is mostly completed as well. The data that supervisors need now are in level A and beyond.
Lifers gave up on advancement because it was uncertain even after risking their lives, and they were living in reality.
There are only about 30 level A Lifers and after discussing the only level S Lifer, Cha Jun Sung, they decided that he isn’t qualified to enter levels S and A missions.
This is a condition that applies to him even if he doesn’t use his mutant strength.
They will use powerful sanctions if he goes against them, taking away his Lifer qualifications. They have no other choice because levels S and A missions are extremely limited. The experiment is thrown away if Cha Jun Sung uses his mutant strength to complete them.
Even if Cha Jun Sung stayed trapped inside his battlesuit without awakening, his bodily specifications have already transcended the 10th stage of body modifications.
They could understand his level 8 strength to a certain point.
But he is level 9.
He became a being beyond the assumed range. He has developed too much to evaluate him based on a Lifer system.
“Was he meant to be this great? There’s a fuss on both sides. What an impressive bastard.”
At this point, Borteth needs to admit to Cha Jun Sung’s worth as well. Because of his entry restrictions, level S Lifers were only in name.
It isn’t easy to get useful information from level A Lifers, made up mostly of Rankers. Whatever they do get will be in small amounts.
“The time for an influx is necessary since there are few challenges and numbers because of the difficulty.”
When there are more level A Lifers, there will be that much more people attempting missions.
It is proportional.
There are just 30 people now, but when it becomes 300 and 3000, there will be that much more data on performance.
Of course the supervisors expect enormous sacrifices in the conditions for advancement, and will just result in saturation in level B from C.
They have minimal expectations for inflow into level A.
Excluding current level A Lifers, the average battlesuit configuration for ordinary Lifers is at 5 or 6 combinations.
With this, they can handle lower or mid level 6s.
Even those who were among the top in the virtual version have 7 combinations, and 8 are very rare. In this state, not even a full raid would matter in a level B advancement mission.
Dozens of top level 6 mutants can’t beat a weak level 7. There would have to be Lifers in the hundreds.
2 or 3 mutants come out in an advancement mission. Those are the missions that get chosen.
Three completions.
That means they need to risk their lives three times.