Acquired the Scam Rune in the Academy

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Incheon Metropolitan City, Ganghwa-gun.

An island commonly called Ganghwado Island.

And countless uninhabited islands nearby.

Among them, Gijangeum Island is the home base of the <Villain> clan.

Important information and items about the clan are scattered across many uninhabited islands near Incheon, and although there is no one location that can be singled out due to this decentralized network structure…

Nevertheless, Gijangeum Island is considered the home base by the clan executives.

Because the clan master of <Villain>, Hwang Dong-yeon.

“It’s still a boring island.”

Clothes and coat covered in blood.

A large, shabby sword hanging over his shoulder.

Hwang Seong-yeon quietly comments on the island while walking into the center.

In the middle of Gijangeum Island.

If you look closely around it, there is a structure with a unique shape leading underground.

Another hidden space appears inside from there after tampering with the concealed device, and you have to engrave a password for the door to open.

If it was someone’s first time here, they wouldn’t even be able to find the structure let alone the device…

But for Hwang Seong-yeon who frequented Gijangeum Island like his home, it was a tedious repetitive task.

Creak-

Thud-

He forcibly opens the device with his foot and carelessly engraves a password.

Then inside the narrow space.

An even narrower secret space appeared.

Hwang Seong-yeon enters it and starts going down.

Since it was an underground space made from the island, its depth wasn’t as deep as one would think.

As if getting up every morning and eating cereal, Hwang Seong-yeon naturally opened the special spaces and entered… Soon he was able to arrive at his destination.

“Ughh, ugghh-!! Ugh, ugh, urgghh-”

“…….”

As soon as he opened the door, a shrill scream of a woman was heard.

And as if something had happened to make her shut her mouth right away, the sound of bubbles boiling from her mouth was heard at the same time.

Hwang Seong-yeon immediately frowned.

It was a sound he heard every time he came to this space, but…

He didn’t feel great every time he heard it.

The screams he enjoyed were not that kind of freaky scream.

“Ugh- ugh- urggh-“

“O, oh. Bro, brother. Yo, you’re he, here?”

And as if noticing Hwang Seong-yeon’s presence, a man assembling the woman in question looked up.

Deeply sunken head and dark eye circles.

An atmosphere gloomier by far compared to Hwang Seong-yeon, the owner of Mageom (demon sword).

And somehow, features strangely resembling Hwang Seong-yeon.

It was Hwang Dong-yeon, the clan master of <Villain> and Hwang Seong-yeon’s younger brother.

“I found it. What you were talking about.”

Still frowning, Hwang Seong-yeon threw the Orb he had in his clothes towards Hwang Dong-yeon.

The legendary special item obtained by assaulting the academy during the recent joint operation.

It was [Order of Harmony].

Carefully receiving it, Hwang Dong-yeon asked in surprise.

“O, oh! I, is this for real? Wo, wow. Ho, how?”

“What do you mean how. I poured all the clan’s power to get it. Our clan is now considerably more dangerous. I brought what you wanted so take care of it yourself.”

Hwang Seong-yeon was not in a good mood.

Even though he barely managed to bring it by force at his younger brother’s persistent nagging, this was not a good choice.

Declaring full frontal war against the academy, and major clans related to it would soon participate as well probably.

If that happens, <Villain> would be in danger.

It was a crisis where the clan could even be dismantled, and in the worst case they might have to leave Korea.

In the end though, the clan was just a means to an end. If this clan disappears, opportunities for him to feel thrill would diminish as well.

Naturally, Hwang Seong-yeon could not feel good.

However, Hwang Dong-yeon seemed to have no interest at all in the external situation. He stroked [Order of Harmony] like a treasure and said.

“O, oh. I, it’s ok. Wi, with this… Hehe… Tha, thanks, bro.”

“…….”

Quietly watching that, Hwang Seong-yeon soon turned around and left the master room.

“Urghh- urggguh….”

Behind his turned back, the woman’s freaky voice still flowed out.

The grotesquely divided body parts were also…

strongly etched into Hwang Seong-yeon’s mind.

As he closed the door and came out he said.

“…How boring.”

He felt every time he saw it, it was not a very enjoyable sight.

And he thought.

No matter how <Villain> was a gathering of psycho killers…

Compared to his younger brother who first created and led this insane clan, he was lacking.

***

Ippotranslation

***

“In the end, a taming contract is a rune that allows you to make a contract and tame special existences that are highly valued by the system. So the Holder must always think about how to utilize this contractual relationship…”

Professor Kang Dong-wook’s lectures conveyed multifaceted knowledge.

[Training Contracts] are special runes that can tame and make contracts with these specially valued beings, and utilize them as partners.

The [Promise Bound by Dragon] I obtained this time is a legendary rune that is a higher version of such a [Training Contract].

As you can tell from the word ‘training’, the protagonists of these existences are usually monsters.

You can train monsters and borrow their powers to deploy them in battle.

Of course, if the subject of the contract changes, the name of the rune also changes.

If the rune is called [Spirit Contract], then that existence becomes a spirit, and if it’s [Golem Contract], then similarly it becomes a golem.

The key is that you can make ‘contracts’ with these special existences.

When information about these runes was first revealed, the Holder Association could not easily dismiss their doubts.

We can train monsters, our hostile existences?

The trained monsters won’t attack humans?

It was content that didn’t make sense based on common sense.

However, as researchers like Professor Kang Dong-wook who delved deeply into this emerged, and actual cases of successful monster training occurred one after another…

[Training Contracts] were finally recognized as a special type of rune system.

“As the taming of monsters became successful, theories that had been circulating in the international academia as orthodoxy also lost their sheen.”

“What theory are you referring to?”

I asked in response to Professor Kang Dong-wook’s words.

He continued firmly.

“The theory that monsters will unconditionally be hostile to humans. Just as we Holders were given power by the system, they simply lost their intelligence due to the system. This is still a minority view in academia… Some refer to them as beings from another dimension.”

“Beings from another dimension…”

I quietly ruminated on those words.

Not because I was surprised by the new term, but because a quite familiar term came from an unexpected person.

‘Research has already advanced this far huh.’

Beings from another dimension, monsters.

Although now referred to as a minority view in academia, this will later become an unambiguous mainstream academic view.

The dungeon that becomes the starting point for this change in perception is ‘The City of the Distorted Wolves’.

The dungeon that Park Jin-woo sets foot in towards the end.

An episode of <Next Rune Holder> that I didn’t get to fully see before I was possessed.

In this dungeon, ‘werewolves’ who attempt to communicate with humans appear for the first time, completely reversing the perception of monsters by 180 degrees.

The details are complex, but to summarize it in one phrase:

That they were not simply a peculiar phenomenon, but like Holders, ‘beings from another dimension’ entangled by the system.

Discoveries like the ‘City of the Distorted Wolves’ dungeon and research into [Training Contract] runes triggered such a change in perception.

As Professor Kang Dong-wook was talking excitedly about this…

He suddenly seemed to realize the time and said worriedly:

“I’ve been chatting for too long. Anyway, to get back to the main point, like other systems, common runes are also very important for the training system. Without support from common runes, the contract targets often cannot exert their full power.”

To summarize his explanation:

When utilizing [Training Contracts]…

The most important things are ‘Leadership stat’ and ‘support runes’.

Among them, Leadership determines the trainable grade and number of contracts.

Below 10 Leadership, E-grade monsters up to can be trained, 10 or higher allows D-grade, 20 or higher allows C-grade, and 30 or higher allows training of B-grade monsters.

However, these are just general guidelines, and can vary greatly depending on the performance and level of the rune.

The maximum number of possible contracts also changes according to situational requirements.

‘Support runes are also absolutely critical.’

The second element, support runes, is also key.

There are various common runes like [Language] and [Summoning] that Professor Kang Dong-wook explained, as well as [Magic Sharing], [Contract Reinforcement], etc.

Although each rune has slightly different effects and performance, most commonly they allow the contractors to get closer with them and slightly increase their combat efficiency.

Even if I succeed in training a monster right now, without these guys, I wouldn’t be able to expect a meaningful increase in combat power.

“But Holder Do doesn’t have any of these common runes, right?”

Professor Kang Dong-wook suddenly asked worriedly.

“I don’t know much about Multi-Holders, so I don’t know how you obtain new runes. As I said before, even with the Training Contract rune, without other supporting runes equipped, it would be difficult to actively utilize the rune.”

As I said before, training monsters has several prerequisite conditions, and without perfectly meeting them, it would be difficult to properly utilize [Taming Contract] no matter how high the rune’s level is.

Professor Kang Dong-wook was pointing that out.

Moreover, his guess was actually correct.

I only had the taming system’s [Promise Bound by Dragon] rune, and didn’t have any other common runes at all.

However, unlike Professor Kang Dong-wook’s worries…

These factors didn’t worry me at all.

“Professor, about how many students are there in the Academy’s taming system?”

“…Students?”

Professor Kang Dong-wook repeated in surprise at my sudden question.

Talking with a top expert then suddenly students in the system?

His expression was like, where did this irrelevant question come from?

“Yes. Even within special systems, there are sub-systems right.”

No matter how rare and special the taming system is, there are still students.

After all, the Special Systems Academy was established to educate such minor systems.

And according to Professor Kang Dong-wook’s words…

They must be specialized in the taming system.

The probability was high that they possessed all the support runes he mentioned.

Realizing this, I smiled slyly and said.

“It would be best if there are as many as possible.”

Support runes I currently don’t have.

I had an easy way to obtain them.

Professor Kang Dong-wook answered with a slightly bewildered expression.

“There are about 3 students… But….”

I nodded satisfactorily to that.

3 huh.

Nice, just right.

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