novelraw Chapter 255 : Chapter 255
Chapter 255 : Chapter 255
Chapter 255: Preparation (2)
The Swordmaster opened the trunk of the car he arrived in, took out his sword, and attached it to his waist.
I headed toward the nearby open field with my hands clasped behind my back, and the Swordmaster followed me.
Watching my leisurely steps, the Swordmaster handled the sword at his hip.
The accumulated bad feelings hadn't been completely resolved, but at least things weren't serious enough to swing a sword at the back of my head.
No, he felt a very slight sense of gratitude toward me for bringing him closer to his daughter.
The imagination of swinging his sword was merely his tendency to assess the capacity of his opponent.
How long did he 'measure' me like that?
A drop of sweat trickled down his forehead, despite the cool weather.
It was truly bizarre.
I was clearly full of openings.
I was in an defenseless state, completely exposing my back.
Even if I were a stronger opponent than him, the difference in our realm could be overcome if I were this unguarded.
In fact, if my state had been like this during our first confrontation a few months ago, he would have at least leisurely taken one of my arms.
However, he felt a premonition—no, a certainty—that even if he attacked the vulnerable opponent in front of him, the blow would not land.
Attacks aimed at my neck, arms, legs, or chest would all be blocked too easily.
While he was engaged in the simulated battle in his mind, my voice was heard, still facing forward.
"Is this enough?"
Only then did the Swordmaster come to his senses and look around.
We had already arrived at the isolated open field I mentioned.
I stopped and lightly stretched my body, only turning my head back.
"You are certainly strong. But that's the strength you possess purely when fighting people. I doubt whether it can be applied when facing calamities or disasters, enemies of a completely different scale and nature."
The strength he had accumulated through countless real-world experiences and training.
It couldn't be denied that he had the right to be called the world's strongest hero.
However, that was limited to facing human opponents.
The enemy I was about to face was too massive and powerful to be called human.
I lightly raised my fist.
"I'm going to test you."
The Swordmaster frowned, showing his displeasure at the nuance that I was going to test him.
"You speak as if it's already decided that I will willingly cooperate with you to fight this unknown disaster."
"Well, of course you'll cooperate. As a hero in name, would you really just sit back and watch as the people around you all die and the country falls?"
The Swordmaster's expression crumpled even more, seeing me casually bring up the collapse of the country.
The Swordmaster knew well that I was not the type to spew absurd lies.
I genuinely believed that a disaster threatening the nation's existence was imminent unless I stopped it.
"What the hell is going on?"
"That. Well."
I completely turned around, took off my black coat, and clenched and unclenched my fists.
"I'll tell you if you can beat me."
At that, the Swordmaster drew his sword.
The combat simulation just now was ultimately just an unactualized imagination.
The me in his mind was actually stronger than my real state because he had made me too big and powerful an enemy in his heart.
He would now prove that by defeating me.
And only when facing me head-on, not from behind, did he realize belatedly.
My condition was not normal.
My posture, my breathing, my heartbeat, my momentum in a ready stance—everything looked weaker than any Ho-cheol he had ever seen.
He had heard that I had just fought Smiley, so was the damage from that battle still lingering?
After all, as the Swordmaster recalled, their skills were evenly matched.
It wouldn't have been easy to defeat her.
He didn't know the details of what happened between us, but he could guess to some extent.
The Swordmaster swung his sword straight toward me.
Kaaang—!
Wielding the Heart sword.
That was clearly a new realm reached as the Swordmaster's Trait evolved and advanced to its limit.
Yet, even while fighting fiercely and wielding the Heart sword.
He couldn't defeat even the bare-handed me.
The Swordmaster, who had planted his sword in the ground to support his body, caught his ragged breath.
"What the hell…"
He couldn't even understand what had happened.
My combat style completely deviated from the original.
The Swordmaster could follow my movements in accelerated time to some extent, but there were areas in between that were impossible to follow, let alone perceive.
He didn't even know what had been done to him in that erased time.
Unlike the half-collapsed Swordmaster, I stood in my initial posture.
However, my expression, though victorious, wasn't exactly bright.
I was staring intently at my fist, not the Swordmaster.
"This is, well…"
I merely clenched and unclenched my fist, wearing a look of dissatisfaction.
My Trait had evolved in the final moment during the fight with Smiley.
It wasn't a numerical progress like mere output or density.
"It doesn't seem to be a power I can just use whenever I want either."
If I use it recklessly like before, my body won't be able to handle it.
Until now, I hadn't neglected my physical training to use my Trait freely, but it seemed even this was insufficient.
After briefly grasping my condition and Trait, I lowered my fist again.
"I did say I'd explain if you won, but I can't exactly keep silent."
The Swordmaster's cooperation was also half-mandatory in my plan.
It wasn't just his presence, but I needed to gather every awakened person above a certain output level.
If the opponent is a colossal mass of power of a different scale, then we have to push back with numbers.
I squatted down and met the Swordmaster's eyes so that the three people watching the fight from behind the tree couldn't hear.
I slowly began to speak.
"The Gate we recently discovered…"
As my explanation continued, the Swordmaster's expression grew serious.
"That's how we'll catch it."
I explained my entire plan and shrugged my shoulders.
At the gesture, which seemed to ask, How about that? the Swordmaster moved his lips silently for a long time.
"You're insane."
The answer was exactly what I had expected.
"I know."
That's why I only smiled.
***
Da-yeon and Ye-jin expressed their desire to follow me with their expressions and their entire bodies, but I immediately refused.
There was absolutely nothing they could learn by being with me right now.
It was better for them to learn more under the Swordmaster.
After finishing all my business at the Cemetery, I immediately headed to the Hero Association.
Although it was the weekend, all the Bureau Directors of the Association were summoned as soon as I contacted them.
In the Association basement, the Association President was handed over via a secretly infiltrated vehicle.
Having been completely stripped of his Rejuvenation Trait by Ji-an, he had reverted to his original elderly appearance and was half-paralyzed from the pain during the extraction process.
Now, he couldn't be removed from life support for even a moment.
The Bureau Director of Finance muttered reluctantly, looking at the President lying in bed with a respirator.
"…The Association President's position is vacant."
The Information Bureau Director merely clicked his tongue.
No one protested to me about the Association President's condition.
The President's misconduct, which I had already relayed through the Legal Department Director yesterday, had reached their ears, and they had confirmed the veracity of it all.
The Association also had an Awakened with a Trait that could read the memory of places, so they shared the series of events that occurred in the Association President's Office through this.
The President they confirmed was in a state far beyond the minimum standard—so embarrassing that he could barely be called a hero-related person, let alone a hero.
They also reached a conclusion regarding this matter in a meeting before I arrived.
"Yes. We will agree to bury the Association President's matter."
The fact that their ages were younger than the President's was effective.
If they were the same age as the President, they might have sympathized more with him, but they were not yet desperate enough to beg a villain for youth through human experimentation.
The fact that the President tried to kill me, and the fact that I conversely kidnapped him and turned him into a living corpse.
If the story got any bigger, it would only be a burden to both sides.
Knowing this, I accepted it with a casual nod.
"Alright, then let's get to the real main point."
I stood on the chair and sat astride the backrest.
That posture was utterly delinquent and devoid of manners.
Most importantly, the sitting Directors naturally had no choice but to look up at me.
Their gazes directed at me were piercing.
However, I twisted the corner of my mouth and smiled, as if I had wanted that.
What can I do when I don't even want to converse at the same eye level as these guys?
Thus, I explained the detailed information about the monster and the plan to confront it.
The emotion the Directors in the conference room felt began and ended with sheer astonishment.
They were astonished when they heard the identity and specs of the monster.
They were astonished when they heard my plan.
And they were astonished again at the method.
"Insane."
Someone muttered that.
It was everyone's true feeling.
I, however, was unimpressed.
"I've heard that before, so it doesn't move me much."
A plan that required an absurd amount of manpower and finances.
The risk was too great.
They momentarily thought that, but then upon closer examination, it wasn't.
On the contrary, if the worst-case scenario—the monster leaving the Gate—occurred, this wouldn't even compare.
Instead, I was essentially shouldering the entire burden that the nation, heroes, and citizens should divide.
Why the hell is he going to such lengths?
Everyone had that question, but they couldn't bring themselves to ask it carelessly.
It was a high-risk question to satisfy a simple curiosity.
My relationship with them was the worst.
I was still constantly looking for an opportunity to cut the throats of all the Association's high-ranking officials, executives, and Directors.
They, who didn't want to lose their power, conversely saw me as a thorn in their side.
However, faced with the real disaster before them, they instinctively knew that they had to push aside such trivial conflicts and deal with the common enemy.
And most importantly, a single possibility existed in their minds that could solve everything.
If Ho-cheol died in the battle with the monster.
Everything would be perfectly resolved.
They would 'pretend' to cooperate actively with me for that very reason.
Of course, knowing that, I would try to squeeze as much as possible out of them.
Hiding their true intentions, one Director asked a question.
"This isn't something that the heroes alone can cooperate on and solve."
Even if the Association exerted all its efforts, it wouldn't be enough. My plan was that immense.
"I know. That's why I'm planning to poke around elsewhere too."
The Hero Association was merely a side effort.
The enemy was a monster.
And catching monsters is the job of Hunters, not heroes.
I leaned back.
Woof-da-tang-tang—!
The chair fell backward, and I, who was standing on it, turned around.
"So, first, lift the villain designation placed on me."
I was, of course, designated as a villain by the Association immediately after I caused trouble.
If that wasn't lifted, it would be impossible for me to even stay at Clington for a few days, so it was the most urgent problem to solve.
"Poking around elsewhere, does that mean the Hunter side?"
The Legal Department Director, who had maintained silence until now, spoke for the first time.
"I know that among your records, you have connections with foreign Hunters, especially with the corporations in the Battleground. But the government won't accept the inflow of foreign Hunters, will they?"
No matter how much the current government was showering excessive benefits on Awakened individuals, that was limited to domestic heroes and Hunters.
If suspicious foreign Awakened people flocked in, it would naturally be a burden.
"I know. I don't intend to drag in foreign Hunters either. I'll handle it myself, just don't interfere."
Unfortunately, I had almost no network with domestic Hunters.
The only ones I knew were all people who engaged in illegal activities as a daily routine.
But fortunately, even without a network, I knew someone who did.
I let out a soft sigh, holding the doorknob.
I'd probably get scolded a bit, but I'd have to put up with that.
It was only natural that I'd get hit a few times as well.
***
Returning to Clington.
I was sitting on a park bench in a sparsely populated area.
And next to me.
"Agh! Die, die!"
Se-ah's small fists repeatedly hit my side and arm.
Gom-gom on the ground diligently thumped my shin, and as if that weren't enough, he hit the back of my knees with a high kick.
I covered my body with my arms as much as possible, silently enduring every punch.
"Ow. I said it hurts. Gom-gom, did they put an iron core inside you? Why is the cotton so heavy?"
"I'm hitting you to kill you, and it only ends with 'it hurts'?"
"Ah, but right now, it really does hurt."
At that, Se-ah flinched and lowered her clenched fists.
Gom-gom also stopped and lowered his legs.
"…Really?"
"I nearly died, you know."
Saying that, I grabbed the collar of my clothes and lightly pulled it down.
The pitch-black bruise on my solar plexus was revealed.
"That's too black for a bruise."
"It's much better now, though."
"Damn it, you should have been more careful!"
However, that worried comfort was short-lived, and Se-ah's eyes turned sharp again.
"So what!"
There was no issue with being kidnapped and returned for political reasons.
But after that, he didn't even contact her once, and then suddenly his face was plastered all over the news!
"You're my friend! You should have contacted me! And when you came back to Clington, you should have contacted me then! How can you arrive yesterday and only contact me today!"
The tone of Se-ah's shout was full of resentment.
Of course, I was too busy to breathe and my own condition was not good, so I had completely forgotten about her.
"Still, we're in contact now."
"Hmph. Forget it."
She clicked her tongue, closed her eyes, and turned her head away abruptly.
Knowing that I was injured, some of her anger subsided.
She slowly opened her eyes and cautiously asked.
"So why did you call me here? You didn't just come here to let me hit you a few times, did you?"
"Well. About that…"
I reached out, picked up Gom-gom, and held him up to Se-ah in my arms, then said.
"Let's go see your parents again."
"Huh?"
Se-ah and Gom-gom made silly expressions simultaneously.