Chapter 74
In the 4th Scholastic District of Seoul, the Hall of Protection at Hero Preparatory School.
It was too late to call it evening.
Training Instructor An Hwigom entered his office.
Outside the window, Seoul’s night was pitch-dark.
So dark that, unless one checked the clock, one might mistake it for the hour or two before sunrise.
An Hwigom approached the table at the center of the office and set water in an electric kettle.
Then he moved to a nearby display cabinet. As he took out a teacup, he suddenly turned his head toward the window and spoke.
“Will you drink?”
An Hwigom’s question was directed to the man standing with his back to the window.
The Principal of Hero Prep, Kim Shinwoo.
“It is enough to breathe in the fragrance of the steeped leaves.”
“Then I will not bother.”
Indifferently, An Hwigom returned to the table and sat down.
He poured hot water into the cup, and when the scent of leaves began to fill the office, he spoke again.
“I told you last ti as well. I washed my hands of that long ago.”
“Do not worry. I did not co for Manyeong. …But since it ca up, is the situation still the worst?”
“Hmph. If I had not retired and walked out on my own, you would only have seen in the afterlife.”
“That is an answer that extinguishes any curiosity about Manyeong.”
“Enough. You have slled the tea. Get to the point.”
Kim Shinwoo turned his head toward the window.
Then he followed with his gaze the drones drifting above the campus.
After a brief pause, he turned back to An Hwigom and asked about the most shrouded figure in this Hero Preparatory School.
“Ji Seokhyeon… I want to ask about that child’s talent. Everyone is making a fuss, saying the lone-wolf training instructor has been struck by a late-blooming passion.”
“Hmph. Nonsense. I know you have been peeking at the training ground now and then.”
“That is why I am asking. If he looked like nothing, I would not even bother.”
An Hwigom hesitated briefly.
How honest should he be about Ji Seokhyeon’s ability?
But he reached a decision quickly.
“…He is a natural. In terms of instinct alone, he is not inferior to Kim Yuseong.”
“To hear you say that is hard to believe.”
“However, his physical condition is far too poor for what he possesses. That can be supplented over ti, so you could say he is a talent worth anticipating.”
“To that extent… Then what about other talent? Beyond sweating on the training ground, what of his potential?”
Potential.
An Hwigom understood the aning at once.
“If my eyes are not mistaken… he will beco the only one capable of making the stopped clock tower move again.”
“…That is certainly pleasant to hear.”
Kim Shinwoo spoke in a sowhat lowered voice, his expression subtle.
He looked satisfied, and yet sothing heavy flickered across his face.
An Hwigom narrowed his eyes and added,
“So what will you do now?”
“I must confirm whether he truly is that man’s blood.”
“You will not ask outright… Are you saying you will test him?”
“Who knows…”
Kim Shinwoo turned to An Hwigom and continued.
“Even if I do nothing, his ability will draw attention soday. Including from Demonic Beings.”
“Hm. If he falls into the hands of a Demonic Being, it will be difficult for him to end his life peacefully.”
“That is why I would like you to watch him more closely.”
“Is that… also a way of saying that if things go wrong, you want to deal with it myself?”
At An Hwigom’s question, Kim Shinwoo cast his gaze out the window again.
A brief silence followed.
Then he turned back and said quietly,
“Yes. Because we cannot repeat the sa mistake as the past.”
***
Staring at the chiras before , I reflexively adjusted my grip on my sword.
It was not fear.
Before that, the first thing that rose was self-loathing at my own careless decision.
“Chiras…”
Without a doubt, those five chiras were the mafia mbers I had knocked unconscious with Bind.
More precisely, they were mafia mbers who had undergone forced awakening.
Forced awakening was an incomplete line of research that injected a monster’s genetic traits into an unawakened person, allowing them to sense mana.
Naturally, they could not use superpowers such as abilities, and like powerless people, only their bodies awakened.
Even that strength faded again after a certain ti, so most of them repeatedly injected the potion whenever it wore off.
Of course, if they kept using it, they would eventually die from mana rampage.
The corpse Park Chaeshin had ntioned was exactly such a case.
“Where did these monsters even co from…!”
“I do not know…”
The problem was that monster mana flowed within their bodies.
That was also why mana rampage occurred: the monsters’ mana overloaded the human body that had beco the host.
But the chiras now in front of us had a special condition.
Because of Bind, the constraints on mana that had been protecting the hosts had been released.
In other words, those grotesque creatures whose species could not even be identified were conglorations of resentnt, ford by the gathered mana of monsters sacrificed through Callia’s research.
This was plainly my mistake.
The na of this episode was Corrupted Superpower.
That ant the appearance of forced awakeners had already been foreshadowed.
If I had listened to Park Chaeshin’s request and observed even once, with my Demonic Eye, the mana of those who had undergone forced awakening, this would never have happened…
But it was already too late for regret.
I stared at the chiras and asked,
“Just in case, did Gwon Chihun contact you?”
“Not yet. More importantly, I just sent a ssage to Dispel. Assignnt or not…”
Well, I was going to tell her to do that anyway.
Still, how were we supposed to deal with those chiras?
I wanted to use Stealth and run, but if the chiras crossed the ridge and advanced into the city, it was obvious they would create a massive fracture in the original story’s progression.
And I had no way to make Do Minyeong accept my perception-inhibiting ability.
So the only option was to hold the chiras’ attention until Dispel arrived.
A quick glance with my Demonic Eye showed that, unlike when they were human, they now contained enormous mana.
If I tried to use Bind, my mana would be depleted first.
“Then what do we do…”
While I hesitated, the chira running on four legs turned precisely toward .
I raised my sword to brace for its attack.
But the mont it collided, I was crushed by its charging force and hurled backward, slamming helplessly into the bus behind .
“Keugh…!”
“Ji Seokhyeon!”
It was not a level of strength that could be stopped with equipnt.
Thanks to my sowhat high Durability, I was not bleeding, but if I took that twice, it would be a fracture without question.
No, it might even be death by crushing.
The four-legged chira turned its head toward Do Minyeong.
The other chiras followed the lead of the one in front and surged toward her, and before I could even push myself up, sharp claws pierced straight through Do Minyeong’s abdon.
“Hngh…!”
At this point in the original story, Do Minyeong was still far from gaining Durability on my level.
Her blood spurted once into the darkness.
“…!”
The mont the chira’s claw withdrew from her abdon, I used Stealth and sprinted to Do Minyeong like a madman.
Do Minyeong was already unconscious.
I hurriedly pulled out a healing potion from my waist and poured it over her abdon, and thankfully the punctured wound began to close rapidly.
“Ji… Seokhyeon… Run…”
Even while losing consciousness, Do Minyeong worried about .
I carried her to a patch of bushes that looked safer.
Her breathing was gradually stabilizing.
Other than tilting a healing potion to her lips, it did not seem like further asures were needed.
Unless sothing went terribly wrong, she would likely wake soon.
With my Demonic Eye active, I left the bushes.
The chiras, perhaps realizing there was no target nearby, had begun moving in different directions.
One toward Gyeonggi-do, one toward Seoul, and another flapped incomplete wings while trampling buses.
“How am I supposed to deal with them…”
A chira was made from mixed mana of multiple monsters, yet it possessed no distinct attribute.
So the Mist-Clearing Sword was not an effective choice.
And since their bodies were ford by mana, minor physical damage would recover quickly.
Like Park Oseok during the Spring Scholastic War.
“No, it is a little different from Park Oseok.”
It would have been ideal if I could manifest an offensive ability with coins, but after continuous mock training, I had only 1,555 coins left.
So the only viable approach was to target their mana cores, just like other monsters.
It would be difficult to fight them alone until Dispel arrived, but… for so reason, I felt I could do it.
Because with Do Minyeong down, the constraints of being a powerless person were gone.
I canceled Stealth.
At once, the chiras turned their heads toward .
The first to react was the four-legged chira.
Just as before, it charged at with reckless montum.
Facing it head-on, I used the ability Erosion.
My shadow swallowed every object in the depot that had no moonlight.
Roughly within a radius of 100 ters.
“It is quite nauseating, this state…”
It felt as though senses that had once been felt only through skin had been opened to every object connected to my shadow.
It was different from the senses corrected by Agility.
It was not simply sharper hearing or better vision.
It felt as though I could control every surrounding object touched by my shadow through my will.
“If it feels like this…”
I focused on the charging chira.
Once again, it lowered its forehead.
Judging by the way it kept accelerating, it seed intent on sending flying properly.
As it closed the distance, I ran straight toward it.
I had not set a clear objective for attack.
My body simply moved along the best route for striking.
In a single flow, I slipped past the chira’s assault and carved into the inside.
In an instant, I seized its back, and without hesitation, I sliced diagonally through its rear ankle.
—KUUUURGH!
A grotesque shriek erupted from the chira.
Its heavy body tilted violently, and with a thick thud, a cloud of dust burst up.
How could I describe this movent?
It was as if I had made real, with my own hands, sothing I had only ever imagined.
There was still much to verify, but one thing was certain.
Within an eroded field, I would not be struck even once.
I did not stop. I climbed onto the chira’s body.
It thrashed fiercely, but there was no way it could threaten the balance of Agility 20.
My Demonic Eye illuminated the chira’s mana core precisely.
It was thick enough that I would have to drive my sword in several tis.
Destroying the core would make the chira vanish, but… my choice was to climb all the way up to its head and bring my sword down with full force on its neck.
—KWEORGH!
The sword of Hyeonseong was sowhat rough, but it cut rcilessly through its target.
With a sharp death cry, the chira’s neck split cleanly, the severed surface straight as it tore apart.
Thump!
By the setting, its head should have recovered quickly through mana, but the chira could not restore itself and began to evaporate, blending into the environntal mana.
It left not even the shape of the mafia host behind.
“As expected.”
Unlike Park Oseok, who had used a shard, the chira’s mana had been limited from the start.
Limited to the amount contained in the potion the forced awakener had drunk.
So without injecting an extraordinary amount of potion, it would have been impossible from the outset to recover from such a fatal wound.
And if soone had drunk that much potion, they would have died from mana rampage first.
Through the evaporating mana, I looked at the other chiras.
Whether their companion had fallen or not, they charged with brute stupidity.
One dragged its tail, one flapped incomplete wings, and another pounded forward on two massive legs.
I was about to kick off the ground again when I suddenly felt my chest heaving.
It was not because my Stamina was lacking.
It was closer to the exhilaration I had felt when I brought down the Poisonous Golem in District 27.
Sothing that surged just from cutting sothing with my sword…
Drawn along by that sensation, I broke into a run.
The weight of the sword in my hand felt lighter than ever.
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