NOVEL NEXT Chapter 7: Backstab (1)
“Wait, what did that person just say?”
“I think he’s asking for a better reward.”
“Did he just try to negotiate with the angel?”
“Is he insane?”
“He must be out of their mind to act like that.”
The people murmured, but the angel couldn’t hear a thing.
Briel doubted her own ears.
“What did you say just now, human?”
“I’m not satisfied with the reward. I want something better.”
[…]
The angel asked again, thinking she misheard, but the human’s demand remained the same.
As if it were his right.
“How dare this human speak to me like this?”
The beautiful face of the angel Briel contorted in frustration.
“Should I gouge out his eyes?”
Despite the menacing expression on her face, the human continued to stare at them boldly.
It was almost laughable.
“I thought he was actually decent when I watched him take the first round, but now his spewing this nonsense like a lunatic.”
Does he think he’s invincible after taking down a few goblins?
The angel wanted to bash his head out of frustration, but she couldn’t.
She had already used up her authority to kill using that skill.
“That arrogant human. I can’t kill them… Wait, hold on.”
Suddenly, Briel’s expression changed, a faint smile appearing on her face.
“What’s stopping me from killing him? If I want him dead, I can just kill him even without that skill, right?”
With a good idea in mind, Briel turned to face Ryu Min.
“You wanted a better reward, right?”
The barrier surrounding Ryu Min vanished in an instant.
“I’ll make a deal with you. Follow me, and I’ll give you a better reward than you can imagine. The others will wait here until I come back.”
The people nodded, knowing they couldn’t go anywhere, trapped within the pillars.
“She’s going to give him a better reward?”
“Does that mean she’ll do what Black Scythe said?”
“Did he just make the angel really negotiate with them?”
“Maybe I should ask for a better reward too?”
“Only if you’re ranked first place, I bet.”
“I envy him now, if I knew that I would have asked her myself.”
The people mumbled as they watched Ryu Min follow the angel with envy in their eyes.
As Ryu Min watched the envious glares from others, he bit his tongue in frustration.
“What’s there to be jealous about? If only they knew what the angel had in store for me.”
The angel wasn’t really taking him away to offer some reward or compensation.
“If it’s just a reward, they could have given it to me here. Why move me to another location?”
There was only one reason why the angel moved him to a quieter place; to lure him into a trap and kill him.
Ryu Min was certain of it. But why was he so sure? Because he had experienced it firsthand. He had been killed by an angel before.
“Was it the 12th regression? When the angel backstabbed me, I felt so dizzy.”
At that time, and after 12 regressions, Ryu Min managed to kill the goblins with his experience and skill, achieving the top rank for the first time.
“I was expecting a huge reward for being first. But when I saw the special reward box given to the top ranker, I muttered under my breath, ‘It’s not as great as I thought it would be.'”
Of course, he had the right to complain. The problem was that the angel had overheard him.
“I didn’t know then. I didn’t know that complaining would anger the angel.”
And the price he paid for that was steep.
The angel had lured him by promising an even better reward, then struck him from behind.
He died for no other reason than for annoying Briel.
That was why Ryu Min could never see angels in a positive light. To them, humans were nothing more than lowly insects, even when dead.
“I’m sure she’d kill all humans if she could. But there’s a reason why she can’t.”
The angels are not as powerful as they appear to be.
“They made people believe that they cannot compete with an angel. If they try, their heads will explode.”
But this was all part of the game plan.
She only killed that guy at first to instill fear and make people obey her every command.
“That skill that makes heads explode is a one-time ability. It’s a privilege of an angel that can only be used once.”
The ability to kill instantly was called the “head explosion.”
A piece of information he obtained through torturing the angels from the previous regressions.
“If I didn’t use up that privilege in the beginning.”
This is why Briel couldn’t think straight anymore.
It was also why Ryu Min didn’t flinch in fear.
“Angels without their powers aren’t really that scary.”
They may have wings and a few tricks up their sleeves, but that’s about it.
Physically, they’re not much different from humans.
If anything, they’re weaker and more fragile than they appear.
“Angels are just humans with wings.”
Ryu Min wasted no time in seeking revenge on the angel in his next regression.
In the process, he discovered a few things.
Angels are weaker than he thought.
And killing an angel yields hidden rewards.
“You can’t miss out on hidden rewards, especially if it’s an item that can be used to advance to the unique class, Grim Reaper.”
When an angel is killed, an item necessary for advancing to the Grim Reaper class is obtained.
Since then, Ryu Min continued to kill angels.
In the next regression and the next after that.
He deliberately made a name for himself from the first round and then tried to piss off the angel to the point that she would decide to kill him.
“I guess this is the last time.”
Every time, the angel tried to stab Ryu Min with a hidden blade in her wings.
But it was always the angel who ended up being defeated.
“Getting hit in the back would only work once.”