Chapter 306: 306

Editor: Tide

Proofreader: Hydragea

Antarctica (2)

“Hochi, go check the extractor . Let’s see what he has done . ”

At that moment, a man opened the second side door to the right and went into the room precisely at the center of the dungeon, near the dungeon’s extractor .

Thomas could neither stop nor hold back the man trying to reach the center, which never allowed outsiders inside .

The extractor was the dungeon’s everything .

It was not only responsible for the play log, but the dungeon’s management and status of monsters spread around the globe .

Giving up the extractor was tantamount to giving up the whole dungeon .

“Why are you crying? Do you think it’s unfair?”

It was unfair and unjust . Thomas couldn’t accept the current situation .

Thomas Feltchuk was a German-born scientist .

He had a Ph . D . in astronomy and was a scientist who’d devoted himself to pseudoscience .

Most of the followers of pseudoscience pretended to be scientific and use logical theories . Still, it was quite unusual considering that they had never received professional training in the field .

Thomas Feltchuk was somewhat of a prodigy in the field . It could be called a mere boast .

His theories were not that absurd, and even a renowned astronomy doctor supported his idea .

It was what raised the validity of pseudoscience . But on the other hand, it also pointed out loopholes in pseudoscience’s flawed logic .

It wasn’t a smooth religious life .

When Thomas first started with pseudoscience, and his name appeared in the magazines, academic seniors who had never seen him before criticized him .

What surprised Thomas, though, was that his colleagues, who once sided with him, did the same .

It felt wrong when his colleagues, who usually treated him like he was invisible, gave interviews and voiced their condemnation of Thomas’s pseudoscience .

Of course, that was just Thomas’s personal views . Soon, Thomas’s career was like rotten food thrown out by the roadside .

Somehow, people in the Academy sent texts such as “I’m disappointed” after obtaining his number .

But Thomas was happy every day .

When he went to a meeting, he liked seeing people look at him with respect . He liked to make speeches as if he were in a high position .

It felt good to be treated like that—to be noticed . People listened to his every word as if they were God’s words, acting thrilled and anxious .

The criticism from the Academy and his colleagues was also bearable .

At first, it hurt his mentality, but he got used to it over time .

Thomas even enjoyed the blame soon .

Every time he was criticized, Thomas felt like a villain from a famous comic book . He was the centre of attention and interest .

When he first accepted the pseudoscience group’s proposal to pay off his debts, he had a lot of regrets, but when he looked back, it was the right decision .

One day, when he was spending his time like that, a cataclysm occurred . Monsters appeared from all over and began to run wild .

Naturally, everything stopped . There was no longer anyone to criticise Thomas .

They were all about to die, so they couldn’t afford to be interested in criticism .

In a world where existing values collapsed, Thomas was just an older man without acquaintances or friends .

He blamed the world for changing, and the people who left .

At that time, he heard God’s voice in his ear . Frankly speaking, he was surprised .

He had committed himself to pseudoscience, but he didn’t believe God existed beyond the universe and watched over him .

God was pleased with Thomas, who confessed his faults, begged for forgiveness, and suggested Thomas become a prophet of God—like Noah, who saved people and animals that believed in him from a great flood and punished humans stained with sins .

Thomas could not resist the proposal to become the prophet of God and lead the few who would remain on Earth .

It would have been the same for him, even if it hadn’t been God’s suggestion . So he became the owner of the dungeon in Antarctica .

Operating the dungeon was like a game .

Thomas controlled a dungeon with a hologram that emerged at its center and messed around with it here and there . It made him feel like he was playing a game .

Thanks to that, Thomas was able to shake off his guilt quickly .

Rather than agonizing over how many people would be hurt and killed by his own choices, he pondered how effectively he could harm the city .

The more damage he did, the more the people died, the more joyful Thomas became .

There were Awakened people who had cleared the Tutorial, but they were not a threat to Thomas . They could only prevent small monsters .

Over time, the amount of energy collected at the dungeon core gradually increased .

After giving all the energy needed to give to God and to run the dungeon, excess energy remained . From then on, Thomas began to invest energy in himself .

His aging body quickly became young and healthy . His recovered youth made him feel great joy just by taking a walk in the dungeon .

As Thomas became healthier, his greed grew . A few years later, he could break glaciers with a few swings of his fists and could fly in the sky .

Among the numerous monsters in Dungeon, none were stronger than Thomas himself .

Thomas set up portals and began to wander from place to place in the Antarctic dungeon . He would be waiting at the site where the attack was scheduled, just to watch the raid and the soldiers and Awakened, who fled in confusion over a low-level monster’s appearance .

He began to feel omnipotent after seeing their fierce struggles . He knew the secret behind the world that no one knew . He controlled the monsters wrecking the world .

Even the Awakened couldn’t be compared .

Thomas was like a god . It wasn’t precisely wrong, since he was God’s agent .

He felt confident when he confirmed the Awakened identity that had wiped out a group of monsters near the Dungeon .

He was well aware of who they were . Lee Ho-jae and his party were the Awakened of Korea’s Hell Difficulty .

Thomas thought about bringing them in .

It was also fun to look down on humans with overwhelming superiority, but the excessive gap in their strengths made him bored .

He wished that he had a suitable subordinate and companion . He wanted someone to talk about topics he couldn’t share with others .

So he prepared dinner and faced the group of Awakened .

And as if all of his past was a lie, Thomas, who’d been flying in the sky, fell to the ground .

* * *

[Lee Ho-jae]

“About 42 billion points . ”

“That’s all?”

I didn’t know how many points were usually used in the dungeon, so I couldn’t tell if this was good .

“The target for the 89th-floor stage was 100 million points . If we collected all the planet’s source on the 89th floor, it’d be about 100 billion points . ”

The total points from sources of the planet was about 100 billion? Forty-two billion was already missing from here .

“You’ve sucked up a lot . Hey, hey . ”

I slapped him on the cheek and poked his eyes to see if he had regained consciousness . I was getting used to controlling my power .

“Hey, how could you not run away, huh?”

It was incredible . I thought this guy would disappear as soon as we got into the dungeon . I wondered if he was keeping himself hidden until the end, but he even guided us .

It wasn’t a trap .

“Did you think I’d be equally happy if the guy who was controlling the monsters on Earth told me he was happy to see me now? I don’t understand . ”

Thomas opened his eyes but couldn’t answer me . He didn’t even seem to understand me .

Had my plan of strength controlling failed?

I looked at Hochi . “What do you think? Can you make do?”

“Of course, though, there is some security . ”

“And?”

“I’ve had it all cracked,” Hochi said with a grin . He was not only motivated but also competent, perhaps because it was his favorite field .

It was strange .

“Then we won’t need this one . ”

After pulling off Thomas’s neck from his body, I got up from my seat .

Over the past decade, he’d been such a brute . I couldn’t believe he’d hurt tens of millions, perhaps even hundreds of millions of people .

“There are a few more dungeons like this?”

“Yep . Leaving aside Pyongyang and Antarctica,” Lee Joon-suk told me .

Maybe because it was hard to understand the situation, Lee Joon-suk had been struggling for a while and had gone around the dungeon with Hochi to adjust .

He hadn’t experienced it directly in Hard difficulty, but he quickly adapted because he had been through something similar .

“With four more dungeons like this, the Earth’s source would be almost exhausted . ”

“I don’t know . This dungeon could have been exceptionally mined . ”

Still, there wouldn’t be much left . I understood why the gods were reluctant to extract the source of planets . The consumption rate was too fast .

The dungeon had mined half of the planet’s source for just over a decade .

I didn’t know exactly how much power the source of that would be, but Kirikiri had replied that it was incomparable to the power drawn through faith for a long time . In just a decade, they were trying to kill the source that had produced faith stably for thousands of years, no, tens of thousands of years .

From the gods’ perspective, I wondered if the source’s extraction would be seen as illegal fishing that would destroy the ecosystem itself by wiping out even a small fry with a thick net .

They couldn’t do this crazy act in their territory, so naturally, they would hide in other people’s territory and do it like a Chinese fishing boat .

I’d heard that planets with extracted sources would decline rapidly, and that new civilizations would not be born easily .

But what happened to a half-extracted planet?

I didn’t know . I asked Hochi, but he was clueless as well . I could once again feel that there was still a lot of information I didn’t know .

“Stop the extractor first . Let’s think about it later . ”

“Okay . ” Hochi turned back to the room with the extractor .

Hochi, who had been walking one step at a time, suddenly halted .

“Stop . ”

I heard a voice from behind me that made Hochi stop . And behind me was Thomas’s body, who was decapitated .

A headless Thomas stood up from his seat .

I could recognize it with a glance . He was a Ruler and, at the same time, a god .

He was a Ruler who couldn’t even compare to the Mantis inside Yong-yong’s box .

We’d finally met . Before dealing with the Ruler, I looked at my party . Hochi was shaking his feet as if he was confused by the fact that he’d stopped for a while .

Lee Joon-suk… was kneeling down and vomiting blood .

Why was he so weak? Yong-yong ran towards Lee Joon-suk in surprise . He could treat Lee Joon-suk on his own .

Turning away from my party, I looked at the Ruler, who was covering Thomas’ body .

“Who’s trying to shut down my dungeon?”

When Thomas died, I said I’d stop the extractor, and at that time, the Ruler popped out . Or was the Ruler just taking time to get here?

I was curious and had a lot of questions . So, I talked with a bright smile just like Thomas, whose head had been separated from his neck .

“Now that the boss is finally here, it’s time to talk . ”

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