Level Up Machine

Chapter 59 Armor of the Demon God (4)

“Is this the royal treasury…?”

Yeong-sik moved into the royal treasury and looked around. It was a wide cavern that made him feel as if he had entered a dungeon.

Beyond the cavern, illuminated by a faint blue light, stood a massive blue door adorned with intricate patterns. The door seemed to be over 20 meters tall.

“Gasp, gasp! Cough!”

Using the teleportation magic to cross the space-freezing barrier, Yoo Jin clutched his chest, gasping for breath. His face twisted in pain as his entire body burned with overflowing mana.

“Are you alright?”

Yeong-sik approached Yoo Jin and asked. Yoo Jin nodded with a strained expression.

“I’m fine. It’s just the price for forcibly breaking through the barrier.”

As Yoo Jin spoke, he rubbed his left chest with one hand. Yeong-sik nodded in understanding. Considering the place they had breached was a treasure vault of a kingdom, the price seemed trivial.

“By the way… this doesn’t really feel like a treasure vault.”

Yeong-sik looked around and commented. The place felt more like a dungeon than a treasure vault.

‘It’s different from Han Cheol-ho’s warehouse.’

Comparing the treasury of a mere guild to that of a kingdom was foolish, but once inside, he couldn’t help but compare. Unlike Han Cheol-ho’s warehouse, which was filled with dazzling treasures from the moment he entered, this place had a different atmosphere altogether.

“In fact, I only found out the location of the royal treasury through a cross-section map, but I don’t know the internal structure or where the ‘Blessing of the Archangel’ is located.”

Han Seong said with a bitter smile.

Yoo Jin examined the gigantic door with a sharp eye and spoke up.

“There’s no space-freezing barrier here, so it should be easy to pass through. But… the problem is, we don’t know what’s inside.”

He tapped his chin with his fingers, lost in thought. If there were any specific markings, he could make some inferences, but the gigantic door had no markings at all.

“Let’s go inside first.”

Standing around here and pondering wouldn’t yield any answers.

Yeong-sik said as he walked towards the enormous door beyond the cavern.

“Yes, let’s do that.”

“Gather around me. I’ll use Blink to get us past the door.”

Han Seong and Yeong-sik stood beside Yoo Jin. A blue light emanated from Yoo Jin’s body, and the three of them seemed to dissolve into the air.

“Hmm…”

Yeong-sik swallowed a sigh as they moved beyond the door. To be honest, he had expected the area beyond the door to be filled with sparkling treasures.

However, beyond the door was merely an empty passageway.

“Is this really the royal treasury?”

“Yes, I’m certain. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have placed a barrier strong enough to trouble Yoo Jin.”

“Hmm. This looks quite different from what I imagined.”

Yeong-sik looked around the passageway with a disappointed expression. Although they had not yet fully explored the treasury, there was no sight of mountains of gold that he had hoped for.

“Haha. It’s different from Han Cheol-ho’s private warehouse. This place only stores truly ‘valuable’ items.”

“Valuable items…”

Yeong-sik’s eyes sparkled at Han Seong’s words. Han Seong continued in a calm voice.

“An S-grade rare item like the Blessing of the Archangel is something you can’t buy with gold. Having gold piled up in a place that stores such precious items… would actually be quite demeaning.”

The royal treasury they had infiltrated wasn’t just a simple treasure vault. It was a place where the nation secretly stored its most valuable treasures. It was like how you wouldn’t find stacks of cash in a vault meant to store billions worth of precious items.

As Han Seong said, it would indeed be quite demeaning.

“Well, regardless of the dignity, I was hoping to see some gold piled up.”

Yeong-sik said with a regretful expression. He understood why there wasn’t any gold, but he couldn’t help feeling disappointed.

‘Even if rare items are out of reach, we could’ve taken a lot of gold.’

While rare items might exceed the inventory’s capacity, gold could be carried up to a maximum of 50,000 gold per person regardless of inventory limits. Just taking 50,000 gold and a few miscellaneous rare items could yield an enormous fortune worth billions in Korean Won.

‘Then I could buy as much mithril as I want and significantly level up my crafting skills.’

Yeong-sik thought as he walked down the passageway.

‘Not everything can go perfectly.’

The fact that they managed to enter the royal palace while the kingdom’s security and guards were out on a monster hunt was already a stroke of incredible luck. Their primary objective in entering the royal treasury was to retrieve the Blessing of the Archangel. Wanting more would make him no different from the greedy people he despised.

‘Let’s focus on retrieving the Blessing of the Archangel.’

Yeong-sik pushed aside any lingering greed for other treasures and moved forward.

“Wait a moment.”

As they walked down the passageway, Yoo Jin raised a hand. Han Seong asked with a puzzled expression.

“What’s wrong?”

“…There’s a magical presence ahead.”

Yoo Jin squinted his eyes and stared straight ahead.

At that moment, a section of the passageway wall opened, and a massive golem, about 5 meters tall, stepped out.

Covered in silver-white armor inscribed with magical runes, the golem exuded a heavy pressure, like a giant fully clad in plate armor.

The blue light flickered between its helmet. The massive golem drove its large sword into the ground and spoke.

-If you wish to pass beyond this point, show the royal seal.

“Damn it. Of course, there’s a guardian.”

Yoo Jin scowled at the golem in front of him. Before the golem could turn hostile, he began casting a spell and extended one hand forward.

“Rupture.”

With a low incantation, a spatial rift formed near the golem’s head. The rift in the air swallowed the golem’s helmeted head.

Crackle! Crackle!

-Hostile activity detected. Intruders will be eliminated.

Yoo Jin’s surprise attack only managed to dent the golem’s helmet slightly. His expression hardened.

“This isn’t an ordinary guardian.”

“Can we handle this with just the three of us?” Yeong-sik asked in a low voice, surprised by the unexpected appearance of the guardian. He wasn’t sure if they could take on the guardian with just their small team, unlike if the entire Salvator Guild were present.

Shaking his head, Yoo Jin responded, “It’s impossible with our current numbers. Even if Cheol-tae’s team were here, it would be a close fight.”

Yoo Jin remained calm as he spoke. His primary offensive skill, Rupture, had the characteristic of neutralizing some of the target’s defenses while inflicting damage.

Despite this, the attack had only managed to dent the helmet, indicating just how powerful the guardian was.

“Should we retreat for now?” Han Seong suggested, eyeing the formidable guardian.

Yoo Jin shook his head. “Even if we retreat, we can’t bring many people into this place.”

“So what should we do…”

“I’ll buy us some time. Retrieve the Blessing of the Archangel while I distract it.”

Yoo Jin extended his hand towards the guardian once again.

“Rupture!”

Crackle!

-Intruders will be eliminated.

The guardian’s attention shifted to Yoo Jin. He used Blink to appear at a distance from Yeong-sik and Han Seong.

“Hurry!”

“Argh, just hold on a bit longer!”

As Yoo Jin drew the guardian’s attention, Yeong-sik and Han Seong dashed forward. Despite being a healer and thus not very fast, Han Seong was embraced by Yeong-sik, who urged him.

“Hold on tight.”

“Huh? W-what…”

Before Han Seong could respond to the sudden hug, intense jets of flame erupted from Yeong-sik’s back.

-Whoooosh!

“Ahhhhhhhh!”

Yeong-sik shot forward at high speed with Han Seong in his arms.

Screaming as he was carried, Han Seong clung to Yeong-sik. Boosting forward, Yeong-sik reached the end of the passageway. There, they found three items, each stored in a transparent case.

The items were a mystical silver-white pendant, a brilliant golden longsword, and a book with a golden shield embossed on its cover.

“Huff, huff. What was that just now?”

“I used Boost. But more importantly, which of those items is the Blessing of the Archangel?”

Yeong-sik urgently asked, thinking about Yoo Jin, who was barely holding off the guardian.

“That one is the Blessing of the Archangel.”

Han Seong pointed to the mystical silver-white pendant. Yeong-sik nodded and swung his blade towards the transparent case.

Crash!

The transparent case shattered under his blade. Yeong-sik reached in and grabbed the Blessing of the Archangel.

-An entity without the royal seal has stolen the treasure.

-The royal treasury will automatically explode in one minute.

Rumble!

As soon as Yeong-sik grabbed the Blessing of the Archangel, the ground shook violently, and a clear voice echoed through the passageway. Cracks appeared in the walls, which began to collapse. Alarmed expressions appeared on Yeong-sik and Han Seong’s faces.

‘One minute!’

It was a dangerously short amount of time.

Han Seong quickly turned and spoke urgently.

“Let’s hurry back to where Yoo Jin is!”

“Wait a moment.”

Yeong-sik stopped Han Seong, who had suggested they flee immediately, and his eyes gleamed sharply.

‘One minute.’

Yeong-sik’s mind raced. He noticed the golden longsword and the book with the shield emblem in their respective transparent cases.

“In that amount of time…!”

Yeong-sik shouted as he used Boost to dash towards the case containing the book with the shield emblem. He swung his blade at incredible speed, shattering the transparent case.

Crash!

Yeong-sik grabbed the book with the shield emblem. He opened his inventory and stored the book and the pendant. His gaze then shifted to the sword in the case at the center.

‘The last one!’

Factoring in the time needed to escape, he had only about ten seconds left. Yeong-sik calculated that he could barely manage to grab the sword as well.

At that moment, he noticed something.

‘What’s that…?’

On the opposite side of the transparent case holding the golden sword, he saw a dull black armor emitting a faint light. It had been hidden behind the collapsing wall, revealed by the activation of the automatic explosion mechanism.

As he stared at the black armor, which seemed to be hidden within the wall, Yeong-sik hesitated.

Unlike the other items, the black armor didn’t emanate any magical aura. It was simply a piece of dull-colored armor.

He didn’t have enough time to take both. Logically, the golden sword radiating powerful magic would be the more valuable choice.

However, Yeong-sik felt a peculiar sense of familiarity from the black armor and turned towards it. He reluctantly shifted his gaze from the clearly S-grade rare item sword.

Rumble!

“Yeong-sik! Hurry up! There’s no time!”

Han Seong called out to him urgently. The passageway was shaking as if it would collapse at any moment.

Yeong-sik reached the black armor. Up close, his expression hardened.

“What… is this?”

Even in the dire situation, a puzzled mutter escaped Yeong-sik’s lips. What he had thought was armor wasn’t just armor.

It was a mechanical ‘suit,’ resembling something out of a famous superhero movie.