Fake Professor, Misunderstood As Strong - Chapter 95

Salvation or Mercy? Part-1.
Port City, Urona, Outskirts.

A hidden valley deep in the mountain range.

‘Hmm, it should be here, I think… I rarely came here in the game, so my memories are kind of fuzzy…’

Standing in the air, Jareth glanced at the small valley hidden under the cover of gigantic trees.

‘Who could think that a whole high-grade dungeon is sitting not too far away from the city… It’s really well hidden…’

Usually, Forest Ranger Squads are responsible for discovering the formation of new dungeons before they pose a threat to the nearby population.

But sometimes, even those professionals end up missing one or two dungeons, and these dungeons cause a lot of problems later.

‘This dungeon has a grade-1 seal on it… Even if grade 2 mages were standing right in front of it, they would still not be able to discover this dungeon…’

These types of forest ranger squads usually only have grade-3 people as the strongest, so it’s impossible for them to discover a dungeon that’s been purposely hidden by someone with a grade-1 seal.

But unlike others, Jareth already knew the general location of this dungeon from the game; he also possesses ‘Mana singularity’, which allows him to easily sense even the slightest bit of mana fluctuations in the area.

Upon arriving, he immediately noticed the mana fluctuation of the grade-1 seal, which allowed him to easily track down the location.

For others, it might take months to pinpoint the exact location of this seal using mana detection equipment, but for Jareth, it was as simple as breathing.

‘Forget it; let’s go down and check…’

Jareth shook his head and flew down into the valley.

He landed on the wet soil and noticed a small ravine nearby and a familiar, half-broken statue of a demon.

‘Yeah, this is the place…’

The statue belonged to a demon god called ‘Therath’; his demon cult is said to have been destroyed thoroughly 800 or so years ago.

This statue once used to keep an eye on the entrance of the demon cult’s headquarters and make sure that no unknown person got in without the other cult member’s knowledge.

Basically, it was a guarding mechanism to protect the security of the cult.

Eight centuries have passed since the cult’s destruction, and the statue, along with the defense mechanism, most likely suffered damage from thunderstorms.

‘This statue is the proof that demons have always been looking to destroy the human race… It was ‘Therath’ before, and now it’s ‘Azaroth’; this battle with demons doesn’t seem to have an end to it…’

From the game’s description, one thing was clear: mana and miasma are just two sides of the same coin.

Mana produces magic, and miasma produces corruption; both are polar opposites of each other, but they are fundamentally the same thing.

Jareth remembered a theory given by a famous game theorist,

[Unless Mana is eliminated from this world, Miasma will continue to exist… These two exist in perfect harmony; they are established ‘laws’ of the world and can’t be considered from just a simple perspective…]

‘If this theory is correct, then this game or this world really doesn’t have a really good ending… Even if we get rid of the demon now, there will still be miasma in this world, and it will continue to give birth to more demons…’

‘This is just an endless loop…’

Even in the past, when the Demon ‘Therath’s’ cult was destroyed, people were unable to address the underlying cause; it is likely that the demon left because it had grown tired of tampering with human life.

And now, another demon has taken its place.

Maybe it will also play with human lives for a long time before it gets bored and drifts away somewhere else in the vast cosmos.

For a demon god, time doesn’t seem to exist at all; they live so long that short-lived humans can’t even comprehend their insane lifespans.

Jareth glanced at the fallen statue and pondered.

‘Actually, I am more surprised at how the human race is still surviving after getting targeted by such powerful beings for so long…’

To Jareth, it didn’t matter if the human race could leave this planet and become a great civilization or not; what mattered to him was his own life.

His main goal is to find answers for himself, and he has a feeling that these demons and stuff definitely hold a lot of mystery hidden in them.

‘Sigh~ I can’t believe a day has come when even I have no choice but to search for clues about demons and stuff…’

Usually, only those who want to create a demon cult try to search for clues about demons.

‘Well, this is life… It’s always so strange; things change without your notice…’

Jareth shook his head and placed his hand on his chest.

[Basic Magic: Enhanced Mana Barrier!]

The already strong barrier around Jareth became even stronger when Jareth poured a lot of mana into it.

‘Let’s go…’

*Step*

Jareth took one step towards the dilapidated cave near the end of the valley, and five poison-coated arrows flew out from various directions.

*Clang!*

The arrows collided with the mana barrier and fell down with a thud.

Jareth glanced at the fallen arrows and noticed that even the iron arrowhead had become green as these arrows had been soaked in poison for a long time.

‘If someone below grade 1 gets hit by this, they are sure to die within a matter of seconds…’

Although those arrows were deadly, Jareth already knew that he was going to encounter some traps; that’s why he cast the barrier around him.

That demon statue used to be a mechanism that would scan a person’s mana, and if the person was indeed a cult member, the statue would send a predetermined mana fluctuation to deactivate all traps.

But now that the statue has already been destroyed, these traps are impossible to deactivate.

Moreover, Jareth can’t replicate the mana fluctuation that can deactivate these traps unless he senses that mana fluctuation himself at least once.

Producing the right mana fluctuation with knowing the fluctuations parameters beforehand is a daunting task that will require him to analyze all traps and their magic circuits.

But Jareth didn’t want to waste all that time just trying to deactivate these measly traps; he could simply power through all this without even bothering to worry about the damage.

Jareth took the next step, and two gigantic stone golems crawled out of the ground to attack him.

*Hostile threat detected!**Engaging in combat*

The stone golems have some voice commands pre-built into their mana circuits, so it’s not a big deal that they can say some small, pre-determined voice lines before engaging in combat with a hostile threat.

“You guys are crawling out of the ground…. But did I give you permission for that?”

Jareth’s eyes went cold in an instant, and he waved his hand.

[Basic Magic: Mana Beam!]

A massive magic circle the size of a one-story house appeared beside Jareth and fired a concentrated beam of mana towards a golem.

The beam blasted off the golem into pieces in an instant, and then Jareth made the magic circle turn in the other direction, which caused the mana beam to slice the second golem into two in an instant.

Even the boulders and trees nearby were sliced off into two pieces, and the cut was very smooth and sharp.

‘Kinda feels like I’m firing laser beams or something like they used to do in movies…’

Jareth shook his head and walked slowly towards the entrance of the dilapidated cave.

More golems appeared to attack him as he kept moving towards the cave.

But Jareth just waved his finger and sliced off all the golems with his mana beam, like he was chopping some vegetables.

‘Just how many are there… There weren’t that many in the game…’

In the game, there were only two golems guarding the main entrance of the dungeon, but now Jareth has already chopped off nearly fifty of these golems, and the whole valley has been destroyed by now.

The marks left by the mana beam are very intimidating.

Destroyed golem bodies lay scattered throughout the valley.

Only after Jareth dealt with the fifty-first golem did everything go quiet.

‘Wait, could it be that the protagonist in the game didn’t encounter more than two golems because he has amazing luck? No, that’s not it…’

‘Perhaps the attack was done according to strength…’

When the protagonist entered this high-grade dungeon, he didn’t go too deep, and he only encountered two golems at the entrance.

This implies that the infiltrator’s strength influences the dungeon’s difficulty.

Jareth is very strong; that is likely the reason why all golems were dispatched to deal with him.

‘Whatever, I will just blast through it all…’

Jareth came to this place not because he wanted to save the people from a hidden danger; he came here because he wanted to get some ‘Credit points’, and if some chances can be gotten along the way, then it would be even better.

‘I feel that I am kind of becoming more and more selfish as time passes… Is this body affecting me or something?’

As he wasn’t sure about the situation, Jareth stopped thinking about it and entered the dilapidated cave without hesitation.

[Basic Magic: Glowing Mana Orb!]

This time Jareth only created a small glowing orb, as the space here is small and he doesn’t need too much lighting either; a small one was enough to show him the way in this dark space.

‘Let’s see what we got here…’