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＜ 21. The strongest card (2) ＞ It’s a
scam .
This must be a scam .
Andrea had a distinct conviction. Dark merchants are the second most sorrowful people in the dungeon for their love of money. There was absolutely no way he would do a favor without a price .
Free cheese only lies in a mousetrap. Andrea thought there must be a trap somewhere and used ‘Shadow Imprint’. Soon, his senses were sharpened and he was able to perceive and penetrate the structure of the room and all objects .
The result was unexpected .
‘ There are no traps… ?’
I thought it was cleverly hidden, so I looked it over again, but it was the same. An ordinary room with no equipment. Tricia and Emilia were staring at Andrea, not knowing what to do .
Andrea made a decision .
“ Okay, let’s go and have a look .”
Then he added in a voice so small that the black merchant couldn’t hear him .
‘ But don’t touch things carelessly as soon as you go .’
If there is no device in the room, the most suspicious thing is the object side. As soon as I touched it, I didn’t know if I would get a status abnormality or a curse .
“ Please feel free to look around. Because I have a lot of time .”
The black merchant still maintained a relaxed attitude. Andrea glanced at him and led the way toward the stall .
Andrea, who was carefully examining the items on display, felt like knocking on her knees .
‘ Then it is. There’s no way they’re just giving away good things .’
‘[ Legend] ＜Becoming a Glass Cannon＞ Demon Palace Talabane (Equipment Card): A bow made from the devil’s horns. It gives great power, but it is said that it betrays its owner at the decisive moment. (Strength + 300, damage of all arrows increased by 3 times) ＜Curse: Resistance becomes 0 ＞’
‘[ Epic] ＜Sleepless＞ Dream Necklace: A nameless priest made for a sleepless princess Given Necklace (Magic Power + 30%, 30% chance of falling asleep when attacking) ＜Curse: All enemies become immune to sleep abnormalities ＞’
······
“ What is this ridiculous curse ?”
Trisha glanced at the card, frowned and let out a sigh. Equipment cards were usually unusable because they had an outrageous curse that offset their effects .
Ironically, Andrea was relieved when she discovered the defect in the item. If he really came out with the intention of eating the back of the head, he would have shown us something that was fine .
“ I… I forgot to explain in advance, there won’t be much use among the equipment cards. Instead, there is nothing wrong with artifacts or normal cards, so choose freely from there .”
A dark merchant scratching his head as if embarrassed and giving an explanation. Come to think of it, the curse could only be applied to equipment cards. Andrea listened to that and looked at the artifacts and other cards .
As the black dealer said, there was nothing wrong with them. The embers of doubt that had been extinguished in Andrea’s heart were revived again .
‘ What is it, is it a double-edged method of bringing out defective products, reassuring them that they are not fraudulent, and then attacking them …?’
Andrea’s suspicion of the black dealer had reached an almost paranoid stage. Besides, I had no intention of hiding the fact that I was particularly suspicious. Andrea stares openly at the black dealer .
I was thinking of using it against the trap if I found it, but I couldn’t find it no matter how much I searched. In the end, Andrea decided to straight-up and break through head-on .
“ Hey, if you’re cheating on something, you’ll tell me right now, right? You know well that it is a situation where there is no choice but to be suspicious, right? If you pretend to be nice with good intentions until the end, we will not touch anything and just pass by .”
Hearing this, the dark merchant looked very troubled and twiddled his mustache. The mercantile attitude from a while ago is nowhere to be found, and the appearance has subsided .
A dark merchant who hesitates and finally opens his mouth .
“ I… I’m sorry if my flirting and chattering raised Andrea-sama’s suspicions. It’s because it’s an occupational disease… It’s my ignorance. I should have told Andrea-sama in a more trustworthy manner …”
“… No, your attitude is the same, but the fact that you are a clan of black traders is the biggest problem .”
“ Ah, that’s right. I just wanted you to accept my favor even without an explanation… I can’t help it .”
The black marketer came to the stall, picked up an item, and handed it to Andrea. The corners of Andrea’s eyes twitched briefly after receiving the goods .
It was the ‘Eye of Truth’, an artifact that emits red eyes when you lie while holding it in your hand .
“ Hold it for a moment .”
After that, the dark merchant took off his robe, unfolded it, and waved it around. Then, along the hem of the robe, the landscape of the room was erased, revealing a black space with only darkness .
‘ That’s right .’
How can you lure me into a trap like this? Andrea threw out the ‘Eye of Truth’ and fitted the gauntlet .
However, the black merchant hurriedly waved his hand and dissuaded Andrea .
“ Wait, wait, wait! Not a trap. I just created a space where I could have a conversation, albeit briefly, away from the manager’s gaze .”
Hearing the unexpected name, Andrea paused for a moment. However, the conversation continued with alertness .
“ Manager? Why is that name suddenly appearing ?”
“ Wait before that. Could you hand me the ‘Eye of Truth’ ?”
Andrea picked up the ‘Eye of Truth’ she threw away. It seemed that the dark merchant was trying to prove his innocence with this object .
However, there was a possibility that the eyes of truth were fake. Andrea did a simple test .
“’ Slay the Fire’ is a god game .”
“‘ Dungeon of Infinity’ is also a god game .”
Seeing that only the second horse emitted red light, it was certain that it was genuine .
Andrea throws the eyes of truth at the black dealer. The dark merchant held the handed artifact in one hand .
“ From now on, to prove my innocence, I will hold this artifact in my hand and speak to you. If the red light comes out even once, I don’t care if you kill me .”
“… Okay, tell me what you’re up to .”
The black merchant took a deep breath and spoke clearly, as if emphasizing that it was a very important story .
“… Before we talk, I’d like to tell you that our clan of black traders… is a kind of bug created by the developer .”
He tried to hide his surprise, but failed. Andrea can’t close her gaping mouth. The dark merchant continued his speech in a calm voice .
“ It was literally created to harm the dungeon. Walls break through, objects overlap, textures break, etc… Many of the physical errors that occur in the dungeon are mostly caused by our existence .”
“… That’s why Arpan was so eager to kill you guys .”
“ Exactly .”
After thousands of hours of playing, one question I couldn’t solve was solved. The reason why Arpan and the dark traders hated each other to death. Andrea felt the old jam go down .
But the question still remained .
“ But why the hell would a developer fix a bug in a world they created ?”
“ There are two purposes… One can be seen as a kind of resistance activity against the Administrator. It takes a lot of energy and time just to fix the dungeon’s errors. Thanks to that, the developer was able to avoid the manager’s interference .”
“…”
“ And the other one… As you know, it’s to raise money. ···The developer designed us to somehow collect gold in the dungeon and dedicate it to himself. We don’t even know what to do with that money .”
“… Yes, I really did collect the gold somehow. Even if you steal from others .”
Suddenly, he remembered the dark merchant who stole Andrea’s party’s reward and ran away. The black merchant put on an apologetic expression and lowered his head .
” Ah, about that part… I’m really sorry. Arpan is a terrible guy, but I honestly don’t think annihilating him wasn’t bad as an example. Stealing rewards is strictly prohibited on our side, but it hasn’t been eradicated .”
“… Puck or something .”
“ Uh… it’s hard to say instead. Please feel free to take the things I give you this time .”
“ Yeah, right. Why are things suddenly being distributed ?”
“ From now on, the developer told Andrea not to spare his full support. The true ultimate challenger who will free us from the Administrators !”
When he was full of doubts, his envying eyes looked like an act of deception, but now that I see them, they were genuinely looking up to Andrea. It was a burdensome gaze for Andrea, who was at a loss as to how to confront the manager .
“ So now… that must have been enough proof that I have no intention of deceiving Andrea-sama, right ?”
Andrea nodded. It’s hard to say that it’s a made-up word, but it fit perfectly, and the red light never came out of the eyes of truth .
If there are still questions left, it’s about the developer. Why is the developer collecting money, and how is he going to fight against the manager? And how was it possible to clone a human in the real world and put it into the game ?
The question of this should have been put off a bit. You’ll have to meet the developer to find out the answer. Right now it was more important to pick up something from the newsstand .
“ Return it to where it was. I’ll take as many cards and artifacts as I want and put them to good use .”
The dark merchant smiled and nodded .
Andrea handed over the ‘Arpan’s Horn’ to the black trader. It was a useless relic anyway, other than to sell it to a black trader. The black merchant refused, saying that all goods were provided free of charge, but he couldn’t overcome Andrea’s torch and eventually accepted. It seemed that he was not in a bad mood at the thought of boasting to his colleagues .
And Andrea’s party packed a total of three epic cards, two legend cards, and miscellaneous artifacts and materials .
Read from noble mtl dot com
Notable among them were, of course, the legendary cards that Trisha and Emilia had acquired .
‘[ Legend] Extermination Shot +++ (3 cost): Extinction, reduces the HP of enemies hit by the next arrow attack by 1 (Boss
Excluding monsters )’
‘[ Legend] Origin of Invincibility ++ (3 cost): Makes one ally invincible for 10 seconds .’
‘ Extermination Shot’ is a card that can kill all monsters except for the boss monster at once. Its performance is so deceptive that it hurts to explain it. I made a separate deck for the boss, and I can eat the dungeon raw just by putting this card in a normal deck .
The downside is that it has the ‘extinction’ keyword and is not a wide area skill. However, this is a disadvantage that can be sufficiently covered by using it with ‘Arrow of Explosion’ or ‘Arrow of Heat’ to make it a wide area skill . The
‘ origin of invincibility’ is also a fraudulent performance. Even if the duration wasn’t that long, the effectiveness of invincibility on high floors, which were dotted with instant kills and status ailments, was indescribable .
In addition, the description says that only one person can be made invincible, but because of the artifact Emilia possesses, the ‘Forty-fingered Grasp’, the entire party was able to receive the effect .
“ Mimic, Mimic wants something too …”
“ Um . . .”
Andrea pondered for a moment whether to just pour all her gold into the Mimic. I saved it to use at the store, but the money was solid because I did free shopping .
‘ No, but it might be useful later .’
I didn’t know what would happen, so I decided to save the gold for now. Instead, Andrea took a handful of gold from Archbishop Gregory and gave it to Mimic .
Mimic happily chewing gold and giving Andrea a thumbs up .
“ Lord, master is the best .”
“… Master? Are n’t you a big fist person ?”
“ Three, my God. Who said that rude name? Also, if you have a lot of money, you are the owner .”
It was only fed with the money she brought, but Andrea did not bother to inform Mimic about it .
Meanwhile, Emilia was contemplating the cards and artifacts she had acquired. Suddenly, Emilia looked at Andrea with a pensive face .
“ Andrea… These are good cards, but it would be difficult to annihilate demons with these, right ?”
“ Yeah, I’ll just treat that as an unexpected windfall, and from now on I’ll go to the ‘Temple of the Earth’ to find the card that was my original goal .”
“ But how . . .?”
This time, when I stopped by the event room, it became clear. As a result of calculating the twisted traffic line due to the ‘twisted road’, the number of times that you can stop by the event room among the remaining floors was 2 times, not 3 times. It was overly optimistic to think that there would be a ‘Temple of the Earth’ among them .
However, Andrea had a calm expression without any worries .
“ Don’t worry. We’ll be at the Earth Temple in a few minutes .”
Just as Andrea said, they arrived at the Earth Shrine in just a few minutes .
Emilia was dumbfounded by the unexpected method .
＜ 21. The strongest card (2) ＞ End