Butchers Apocalypse - Chapter 150
Chapter 150: The Golden-Horned King
Translation by: Weebsread👹
I activated the Hero Training Facility, designating Oh Jung-soo as the first trainee.
“…This isn’t exactly inspiring, you know.”
“Hey, you never know. Maybe some hidden feature will pop up out of nowhere.”
“Is that how things work around here? Well, if it’s your idea, Lee Kang-joon, I’ll go with it.”
Oh Jung-soo looked a bit sour at being volunteered, but a glimmer of curiosity soon flickered in his eyes as he settled onto the bench press.
If only this rickety old bench had some kind of secret function…
His mind wandered, but the moment his back touched the bench, a chilling, unfamiliar sensation wrapped around him—cold and alien.
What the…? This is weird.
He gripped the icy steel barbell—
Ding!
> Training will now begin.
“…What the hell?”
> Lift the weight of your past. If you fail, you will be crushed by it forever.
“What?!”
As the System Message echoed, the world before his eyes warped in an instant. The neat gym vanished. Suddenly, he was surrounded by the muddy scent of earth and the drumming of rain in a rural village.
What is this? Why is my body so small? And this place… Wait!
His body had shrunk. In his hands, where a heavy barbell should have been, was a tiny wooden toy. It was that day—the day his tragedy began, back in elementary school.
Young Oh Jung-soo, always freakishly strong for his age. On that day of pouring rain, the bathroom inside their house broke down.
“Mom! I need to poop.”
“Go outside, then.”
“But it’s raining!”
“Would you rather pile it up in a toilet that won’t flush?”
“Then come with me.”
“What’s a kid as strong as you got to be scared of? I have to put your sister to bed.”
With no choice, little Jung-soo trudged out to the old outhouse at the edge of the yard. A wooden plank with a square hole above a deep pit—fall in, and there’d be no coming back. The family had used that bathroom since his grandparents’ time. To him, it was pure terror.
If only we had enough money to move out of this place…
That’s what he was thinking when—
RUMBLE!
A sudden, thunderous roar shook the ground, sending tremors through his whole body.
“Ahhh!”
Frightened at the thought of falling in, he barely managed to pull up his pants and burst out the door.
“…Huh?”
What he saw outside made him freeze. Massive trees and black earth had already buried his tiny house.
“No… No…! NO!”
Screaming, Jung-soo sprinted toward the wreckage, frantically digging through mud and debris. His parents—his little sister—were trapped beneath the earth.
His fingernails tore, his hands bled, but he didn’t stop. Even with the strength that made him a legend among kids his age, it wasn’t enough. At the entrance to the house, a boulder—far too heavy for any child, or even most adults—blocked the way.
“Mom! Dad!”
He clawed at the stone, pushed and pulled until his arms gave out. In the end, he collapsed and blacked out.
When he opened his eyes again, he was in the village chief’s house.
“…What will we do with Jung-soo? Orphaned overnight…”
“Yeah. He was wailing in the dirt… It was hard to watch.”
“He’ll end up in an orphanage, right?”
“If no one takes him in, he will.”
They didn’t realize he was awake. All he heard was pity and resignation about his family’s fate. He threw off his blanket and ran back to the ruins of his home.
His vision blurred with tears, he stumbled and scraped himself over and over, but he didn’t care. By the time he arrived, police and rescue workers were already recovering the pale bodies of his parents and little sister.
“NOOOOOOOOOO!”
Young Jung-soo screamed until his throat was raw.
After that day, he was sent to an orphanage. The memory of that day became a shackle he could never escape.
…Because we were poor… because we didn’t have a proper house…
…No—if only I’d been a little stronger… I could’ve moved that boulder…
He blamed himself for everything. Out behind the orphanage, on a battered old bench press, he began to yearn for Strength. He trained obsessively, desperate to grow stronger—so he’d never lose anything precious again.
He knew: if he didn’t, he’d fall apart.
The past and present overlapped—the memory and the bench press. The barbell became that monstrous boulder, pinning him down.
On each heavy plate, he saw the mud-stained faces of his parents. On the cold steel bar, his little sister’s terrified face flickered.
“…Oppa… Why didn’t you try a little harder…? We… we were still alive back then…”
He remembered now, the faint, agonized sounds he’d heard through the rain. That had been his sister’s voice, all along. The voices of his family echoed, heavy and suffocating.
“Jung-soo… gurgle… the mud… it’s filling my mouth… cough…”
“Jung-soo! Please…! At least save Jeong-in… Please, save our daughter…! Please… be strong!”
His parents’ desperate cries stabbed into his ears.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHH!”
He screamed.
“You’re the only one who survived! Only you! Why did you leave us?!”
Their voices, thick with resentment, pressed down on him.
“Gah—!”
The barbell grew impossibly heavy, crushing his throat.
And I—Lee Kang-joon—watched it all through the Crimson Eyes of Insight.
That battered bench press wasn’t just gym equipment—it was the weight of Oh Jung-soo’s past, all the guilt and the family he couldn’t protect. For a kid, that’s a wound too big to bear.
At that moment, Oh Jung-soo’s trembling arms began to lower the barbell toward his neck.
> Warning! Target is experiencing extreme psychological distress. Training failure probability has spiked!
At this rate, not only would the training fail—Oh Jung-soo himself could be lost forever.
Without hesitation, I stepped into the training space and grabbed the bar pressing down on his throat. The crushing weight of despair threatened to drag me under, too.
“Get a grip, Oh Jung-soo!”
I spoke, calm but firm, to the broken man beneath the bar.
“You keep trying to ‘lift’ that weight—and that’s why you fail. This isn’t a burden you need to cast off. It’s a weight you have to carry, moving forward. And… anyone—any adult—would have failed in that situation!”
“But… if only I’d been stronger… Or if I’d run to the villagers for help, instead of wasting time trying to move the stone myself…”
Oh Jung-soo sobbed, sinking deeper into the abyss. The bar pressed harder against his throat.
“Kgh…”
“You were just a child, Jung-soo. I’ll say it again—even the strongest adult couldn’t have prevented that tragedy. Are you going to let your past keep you from protecting the allies by your side now?”
I met his gaze—steadfast.
“True strength doesn’t come from denying your past. It comes from carrying all that guilt and sorrow, and still moving forward in silence.”
The words spilled out of me, unbidden. For a moment, it felt as if someone else was speaking through me.
“…You’re right.”
Slowly, the wild light faded from Oh Jung-soo’s eyes, replaced by a new resolve.
He no longer tried to run from the past or conquer it. Instead, he chose to accept it as part of himself.
He gripped the barbell again. The ghosts of his family still pressed down on him—but now, he didn’t flinch.
“Yeah… I’m sorry. Dad, Mom, Jeong-in… I was too weak to protect you. But that’s all in the past. I’m just another survivor. I suffer too, simply because I lived.”
Tears streamed down his face.
“But now it’s different. I’ll carry your weight with me, all of it. So please… give me strength!”
At his desperate cry, the resentful faces of his family softened into gentle smiles.
The barbell was still heavy—but it no longer crushed him with pain. Instead, those smiles supported him, urging him forward.
“RAAAAAAAAH!”
The barbell blazed with golden light. With a roar, tears streaming down his face, Oh Jung-soo finally lifted it high overhead.
At that moment, the crimson aura that always surrounded him erupted outward, mingling with a new, solid, sacred gold.
Ding!
> Ally Oh Jung-soo has overcome the weight of his past and realized the meaning of ‘Guardianship.’
> Unique Skill ‘Debt-Collecting Goblin Brawler (S)’ evolves into ‘Golden-Horned King (SS).’
His Information Window flashed with blinding brilliance.
- [Oh Jung-soo, Lv. 56]
- Unique Trait: ‘Debtor’s Brawler (C)’
- Strength: 47
- Stamina: 46
- Agility: 26
- Free Stat Points: 0
- Unique Trait: ‘Debtor’s Brawler (C)’
- When in battle near the ‘target,’ all stats +30%
- Unique Skill: ‘Golden-Horned King (SS)’
- Possesses both Unique Trait and Unique Skill of a Goblin King
But that wasn’t all. Through my Crimson Eyes of Insight, I could see traits and skills he hadn’t even realized yet.
- Unique Trait: Vajra Indestructibility (S)
- Greatly increases physical/magic defense; nullifies all attacks below a certain threshold.
- Unique Skill: Manifestation of Nioh (SS)
- Draws upon the power of Nioh, a mighty guardian deity.
“……”
Nioh… In Buddhism, that’s one of the high-ranking gatekeepers who stand with the Four Heavenly Kings. In this System, that’s nearly on par with a Constellation, isn’t it?
I found myself recalling what Bishamonten had once told me about the Vajra Guardian.
Translation by: Weebsread👹
I activated the Hero Training Facility, designating Oh Jung-soo as the first trainee.
“…This isn’t exactly inspiring, you know.”
“Hey, you never know. Maybe some hidden feature will pop up out of nowhere.”
“Is that how things work around here? Well, if it’s your idea, Lee Kang-joon, I’ll go with it.”
Oh Jung-soo looked a bit sour at being volunteered, but a glimmer of curiosity soon flickered in his eyes as he settled onto the bench press.
If only this rickety old bench had some kind of secret function…
His mind wandered, but the moment his back touched the bench, a chilling, unfamiliar sensation wrapped around him—cold and alien.
What the…? This is weird.
He gripped the icy steel barbell—
Ding!
> Training will now begin.
“…What the hell?”
> Lift the weight of your past. If you fail, you will be crushed by it forever.
“What?!”
As the System Message echoed, the world before his eyes warped in an instant. The neat gym vanished. Suddenly, he was surrounded by the muddy scent of earth and the drumming of rain in a rural village.
What is this? Why is my body so small? And this place… Wait!
His body had shrunk. In his hands, where a heavy barbell should have been, was a tiny wooden toy. It was that day—the day his tragedy began, back in elementary school.
Young Oh Jung-soo, always freakishly strong for his age. On that day of pouring rain, the bathroom inside their house broke down.
“Mom! I need to poop.”
“Go outside, then.”
“But it’s raining!”
“Would you rather pile it up in a toilet that won’t flush?”
“Then come with me.”
“What’s a kid as strong as you got to be scared of? I have to put your sister to bed.”
With no choice, little Jung-soo trudged out to the old outhouse at the edge of the yard. A wooden plank with a square hole above a deep pit—fall in, and there’d be no coming back. The family had used that bathroom since his grandparents’ time. To him, it was pure terror.
If only we had enough money to move out of this place…
That’s what he was thinking when—
RUMBLE!
A sudden, thunderous roar shook the ground, sending tremors through his whole body.
“Ahhh!”
Frightened at the thought of falling in, he barely managed to pull up his pants and burst out the door.
“…Huh?”
What he saw outside made him freeze. Massive trees and black earth had already buried his tiny house.
“No… No…! NO!”
Screaming, Jung-soo sprinted toward the wreckage, frantically digging through mud and debris. His parents—his little sister—were trapped beneath the earth.
His fingernails tore, his hands bled, but he didn’t stop. Even with the strength that made him a legend among kids his age, it wasn’t enough. At the entrance to the house, a boulder—far too heavy for any child, or even most adults—blocked the way.
“Mom! Dad!”
He clawed at the stone, pushed and pulled until his arms gave out. In the end, he collapsed and blacked out.
When he opened his eyes again, he was in the village chief’s house.
“…What will we do with Jung-soo? Orphaned overnight…”
“Yeah. He was wailing in the dirt… It was hard to watch.”
“He’ll end up in an orphanage, right?”
“If no one takes him in, he will.”
They didn’t realize he was awake. All he heard was pity and resignation about his family’s fate. He threw off his blanket and ran back to the ruins of his home.
His vision blurred with tears, he stumbled and scraped himself over and over, but he didn’t care. By the time he arrived, police and rescue workers were already recovering the pale bodies of his parents and little sister.
“NOOOOOOOOOO!”
Young Jung-soo screamed until his throat was raw.
After that day, he was sent to an orphanage. The memory of that day became a shackle he could never escape.
…Because we were poor… because we didn’t have a proper house…
…No—if only I’d been a little stronger… I could’ve moved that boulder…
He blamed himself for everything. Out behind the orphanage, on a battered old bench press, he began to yearn for Strength. He trained obsessively, desperate to grow stronger—so he’d never lose anything precious again.
He knew: if he didn’t, he’d fall apart.
The past and present overlapped—the memory and the bench press. The barbell became that monstrous boulder, pinning him down.
On each heavy plate, he saw the mud-stained faces of his parents. On the cold steel bar, his little sister’s terrified face flickered.
“…Oppa… Why didn’t you try a little harder…? We… we were still alive back then…”
He remembered now, the faint, agonized sounds he’d heard through the rain. That had been his sister’s voice, all along. The voices of his family echoed, heavy and suffocating.
“Jung-soo… gurgle… the mud… it’s filling my mouth… cough…”
“Jung-soo! Please…! At least save Jeong-in… Please, save our daughter…! Please… be strong!”
His parents’ desperate cries stabbed into his ears.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHH!”
He screamed.
“You’re the only one who survived! Only you! Why did you leave us?!”
Their voices, thick with resentment, pressed down on him.
“Gah—!”
The barbell grew impossibly heavy, crushing his throat.
And I—Lee Kang-joon—watched it all through the Crimson Eyes of Insight.
That battered bench press wasn’t just gym equipment—it was the weight of Oh Jung-soo’s past, all the guilt and the family he couldn’t protect. For a kid, that’s a wound too big to bear.
At that moment, Oh Jung-soo’s trembling arms began to lower the barbell toward his neck.
> Warning! Target is experiencing extreme psychological distress. Training failure probability has spiked!
At this rate, not only would the training fail—Oh Jung-soo himself could be lost forever.
Without hesitation, I stepped into the training space and grabbed the bar pressing down on his throat. The crushing weight of despair threatened to drag me under, too.
“Get a grip, Oh Jung-soo!”
I spoke, calm but firm, to the broken man beneath the bar.
“You keep trying to ‘lift’ that weight—and that’s why you fail. This isn’t a burden you need to cast off. It’s a weight you have to carry, moving forward. And… anyone—any adult—would have failed in that situation!”
“But… if only I’d been stronger… Or if I’d run to the villagers for help, instead of wasting time trying to move the stone myself…”
Oh Jung-soo sobbed, sinking deeper into the abyss. The bar pressed harder against his throat.
“Kgh…”
“You were just a child, Jung-soo. I’ll say it again—even the strongest adult couldn’t have prevented that tragedy. Are you going to let your past keep you from protecting the allies by your side now?”
I met his gaze—steadfast.
“True strength doesn’t come from denying your past. It comes from carrying all that guilt and sorrow, and still moving forward in silence.”
The words spilled out of me, unbidden. For a moment, it felt as if someone else was speaking through me.
“…You’re right.”
Slowly, the wild light faded from Oh Jung-soo’s eyes, replaced by a new resolve.
He no longer tried to run from the past or conquer it. Instead, he chose to accept it as part of himself.
He gripped the barbell again. The ghosts of his family still pressed down on him—but now, he didn’t flinch.
“Yeah… I’m sorry. Dad, Mom, Jeong-in… I was too weak to protect you. But that’s all in the past. I’m just another survivor. I suffer too, simply because I lived.”
Tears streamed down his face.
“But now it’s different. I’ll carry your weight with me, all of it. So please… give me strength!”
At his desperate cry, the resentful faces of his family softened into gentle smiles.
The barbell was still heavy—but it no longer crushed him with pain. Instead, those smiles supported him, urging him forward.
“RAAAAAAAAH!”
The barbell blazed with golden light. With a roar, tears streaming down his face, Oh Jung-soo finally lifted it high overhead.
At that moment, the crimson aura that always surrounded him erupted outward, mingling with a new, solid, sacred gold.
Ding!
> Ally Oh Jung-soo has overcome the weight of his past and realized the meaning of ‘Guardianship.’
> Unique Skill ‘Debt-Collecting Goblin Brawler (S)’ evolves into ‘Golden-Horned King (SS).’
His Information Window flashed with blinding brilliance.
- [Oh Jung-soo, Lv. 56]
- Unique Trait: ‘Debtor’s Brawler (C)’
- Strength: 47
- Stamina: 46
- Agility: 26
- Free Stat Points: 0
- Unique Trait: ‘Debtor’s Brawler (C)’
- When in battle near the ‘target,’ all stats +30%
- Unique Skill: ‘Golden-Horned King (SS)’
- Possesses both Unique Trait and Unique Skill of a Goblin King
But that wasn’t all. Through my Crimson Eyes of Insight, I could see traits and skills he hadn’t even realized yet.
- Unique Trait: Vajra Indestructibility (S)
- Greatly increases physical/magic defense; nullifies all attacks below a certain threshold.
- Unique Skill: Manifestation of Nioh (SS)
- Draws upon the power of Nioh, a mighty guardian deity.
“……”
Nioh… In Buddhism, that’s one of the high-ranking gatekeepers who stand with the Four Heavenly Kings. In this System, that’s nearly on par with a Constellation, isn’t it?
I found myself recalling what Bishamonten had once told me about the Vajra Guardian.
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