novelraw Chapter 35
Chapter 35
Chapter 35
“Keheh. Nice to meet you, Long Crow.”
“It’s Jin Crow, old man.”
Jin Crow clicked his tongue with a ‘tsk’ and replied to the man who called him by a name that sounded like it was missing a screw somewhere.
However, unlike his calm exterior, his impression of facing the old man was far from pleasant.
Cold sweat ran from the tension.
The hand gripping the sword trembled, and the compulsion to dash away at any moment prodded at his flesh.
‘Arrogant. No, in this case, is ‘relaxed’ the more accurate word?’
Just moments ago, the reason he had been able to detect the old man’s attack in advance was less because of his ability and more because the old man’s intent had been that strong.
He had scattered psionic energy, and rather than killing intent, it had felt like an attack meant to clear away obstructive buildings.
No, to begin with, it was questionable whether this should even be considered an attack.
Swish-.
He reached up to his forehead and wiped away the blood flowing down.
Thanks to his superhuman body that regenerated most wounds without leaving major scars, the injury had already closed, but it was provocation enough to stoke his already simmering irritation.
“Kim Cheol, Brigadier General?”
“Hm? You know me? That’s unexpected.”
A martial-type special-duty officer in the Red Hand. An old veteran.
When those two traits came together, a name suddenly came to mind.
And seeing him acknowledge it so readily, Jin Crow had no choice but to bite his lip hard.
‘Of all people, it had to be that crazy old man.’
The reason he remembered this Red Hand figure, who had only been treated as a side-episode character in the original work, was for two reasons.
Either he personally liked them.
Or they left an impact in some way.
Kim Cheol was the latter.
And in a bad way.
‘A Penta Gear special-duty officer. A veteran of the Second Galactic War. With achievements, career, age, and skill all placing him among the highest-ranking elders of the Red Hand, yet a lunatic who remained a perpetual brigadier general simply because he wanted to keep fighting in the field.’
Even the reason he wore the rank insignia of a brigadier general was absurd.
He had originally intended to remain a colonel, but supposedly accepted the promotion after his adjutant told him that at least one had to wear a general’s stars to look respectable.
‘……Of all people.’
If it had been another Penta Gear, the pressure would have been less, but standing before a genuine madman was enough to make a hollow laugh slip out.
Usually, when one possessed a novel, they were matched against some manageable opponents early on, but somehow it felt like he was being ground down to just before death every single time.
“Kukuk.”
“Hehehe. I see, your fighting spirit’s been stirred. Looks like you liked my greeting.”
Even then, Kim Cheol was spouting senile nonsense at his own pace.
However, Jin Crow couldn’t voice that thought.
The moment he spoke, Kim Cheol lightly loosened his shoulders, put on a kindly smile, and rushed straight toward him in an instant.
“Then, shall we have a little taste!”
“Kgh!”
There wasn’t even time to raise his sword, so he hastily crossed his arms to block.
But he soon had no choice but to regret that decision.
Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwang!
He had thought he blocked it cleanly, but the destructive power of the embedded fist was overwhelming compared to anyone he had faced so far.
Kuh-luck-!
With blood bursting from his mouth, his vision rapidly flipped. When he came to his senses, he was barely standing, leaning his back against the remains of what had once been a building.
“Did you deliberately move away for the cadets’ sake? Still, that’s instructor-like of you, heheh. I’m liking you more and more.”
Beyond his field of vision, Kim Cheol was still babbling whatever nonsense he pleased.
At this point, there was no choice but to admit it.
What he needed now wasn’t respect for the elderly, but assaulting the elderly.
‘Stall for as much time as possible.’
The gap between Triple Gear and Penta Gear was like heaven and earth, so if someone were watching, they might think this was a new suicide attempt.
‘But right now.’
The body that had been on the verge of death just moments ago began pumping out adrenaline as if nothing had happened the moment the battle started.
Of course, the exhaustion and backlash he would feel later were impossible to gauge, but what could he do.
He had to survive first.
“Hoo.”
After holding the jet-black blade at a slant, he let out a short breath.
At the same time, the step he took carried him before Kim Cheol in an instant, and soon he bit his lip hard and swung his sword, packing it with psionic energy close to overclocking.
「National Army Swordsmanship No.1 : Horizontal Slash」
The sword that had cut down seven special-duty officers just moments ago swung as if it would sever Kim Cheol’s nape in a single stroke.
It was a short yet concise strike.
Watching Jin Crow’s blow, Kim Cheol’s eyes lit with interest as he reached out toward the incoming blade.
“Are you fooling around, young man?”
With a rough, brutish hand unbefitting his age, he snatched the swinging blade barehanded.
Kkigigigik!
At the same time, the two superhumans’ psionic energies tangled and repelled each other, but Kim Cheol didn’t even blink. He narrowed his brow and poured strength into an arm as thick as a man’s head.
Chaeng!
The blade shattered into countless fragments, and Jin Crow couldn’t hide the flicker of agitation that passed through his eyes.
If there was anything fortunate, it was that he was struck by Kim Cheol’s immediately following punch and sent flying again, so that agitation went unnoticed.
Kwaaaaaang!
He flew through the air in a parabola, collapsing a building of unknown purpose before slamming into the ground.
“Kuh-luck!”
It felt as if his spine had snapped once and regenerated; the sensation in his legs vanished momentarily before returning.
Meanwhile, Kim Cheol traversed the trajectory Jin Crow had flown along in mere seconds and stood not far away.
“Hm.”
Instead of attacking right away, he stared at Jin Crow with eyes full of questions and muttered quietly.
“That’s strange. You don’t seem like the sort who would have beaten Liberto.”
He had even broken the sword in hopes that the man might be hiding something, but aside from his expression growing more vicious, there was nothing particularly different.
Still, he had expected more, considering he was an instructor.
‘Whether it was luck or Liberto let his guard down, either way, it doesn’t really matter.’
The dead tell no tales.
Therefore, if both were dead, the truth would be resolved regardless.
Kim Cheol clicked his tongue and rotated his inner Gear, channeling it to the tip of his fist as he spoke.
“Well, whatever the case, farewell.”
To a soldier, honor meant sending someone off as cleanly as possible.
Truly believing that, he began compressing psionic energy until the surrounding air warped, intending to kill him in a single blow.
“…….”
Jin Crow bit down on his lip.
Inside him, the Triple Gear was still rotating, but the exhaustion and backlash from the successive battles grabbed at his ankles.
‘What is this, it’s not like I’m some weakling with premature issues.’
He hadn’t felt it while inside the academy, but now that he was out in the field, he had nearly died more times in just a week than he could count.
Ah, am I really going to die now.
He unconsciously bit his lip and looked at Kim Cheol beyond his gradually blurring vision.
However, at that moment, something enormous suddenly came into view beyond him.
‘That is…….’
A Creature with a form different from the mass-produced types or Pawns he had faced so far.
The moment he took it in with his eyes, he looked down at the sword hilt caught at his fingertips.
Seeing the blade shattered into pieces, now more fitting to be called a dagger, his body moved before his mind.
Wooooong!
He drew out even his very last bit of strength and rotated the inner Gear.
In an instant, blood burst from his eyes, nose, and mouth, unable to withstand the output, and just as Kim Cheol belatedly sensed the oddity and twitched his eyebrows.
“Hup!”
Jin Crow, gripping the blade in a reverse hold, thrust it straight and honestly toward the nape of Kim Cheol’s neck without any technique.
The speed and power carried on the blade surpassed that of the Triple Gear, albeit for a fleeting moment, and Kim Cheol half-unconsciously reached out his hand to parry it.
“Good attempt! Long Cro…….”
“It’s Jin. Senile old man.”
However, Kim Cheol’s belief that he had blocked it was soon shattered.
Contrary to expectations, the blade was an exceedingly feeble strike, and immediately after, Jin Crow’s black military boot filled his vision.
“This.”
Only then did Kim Cheol realize he had been tricked, and he formed a smile mixed with amusement and bewilderment.
Kwaaaaaaaaang!
Regardless of that smile, his body flew through the air, and just like Jin Crow earlier, only stopped after smashing through a building.
“Kuh-luck!”
Kim Cheol rose while coughing with a metallic sound, brushing the dust away with his hand.
Just from that sight alone, the gap between him and Jin Crow was easy to see.
“Right, there’s no way that was all you had. Of course.”
As if to prove it, Kim Cheol nodded with a refreshing smile.
Of course, he had thought something was strange.
No matter what, he was an instructor at a special service academy—there was no way he’d go down that easily.
Just as he thought that and prepared himself for Jin Crow’s follow-up attack.
-Grrrrr.
“Hm?”
Along with the familiar sound of a beast coming from directly behind him, he unconsciously turned his head at the shadow cast over him.
And then, he found himself letting out a hollow laugh as he was reminded anew what it meant to be dumbfounded.
“Heh.”
Unlike the mass-produced types or soldiers he had faced before that wielded spears, this one wore armor sculpted over its entire body like a medieval knight and silently unleashed a fierce glare.
-Grrrrrrrrrr.
Then it let out its signature low rumble and raised its fist.
“……You really worked that trickery well.”
Kwaaaaaaaaaaang!
Immediately after, with a thunderous roar, its fist struck squarely down on Kim Cheol’s head.
“Kuh-luck.”
Tremble tremble…….
With trembling fingertips, Jin Crow barely managed to open the cap of his hip flask and poured the nearly empty liquor all the way down his throat.
The scent and taste of alcohol mixed with blood were foul, but without even a bit of intoxication, the pain rushing in felt unbearable.
“……Kuh-luck! Kehuk!”
Whether it was because the effect of the Pentacle was wearing off, or because his body simply could not endure any longer, he couldn’t move.
Still, since he wasn’t at the point of completely losing consciousness, Jin Crow watched the distant explosions and vibrations and thought.
‘Mid-tier Creature. Knight.’
If a Pawn looked like a spear-wielding soldier true to its name, then a Knight likewise resembled an actual knight.
The name wasn’t given without reason.
The difference was that it was overwhelmingly specialized in defense rather than offense.
In fact, in the story it was described as the most troublesome opponent for martial-type fighters, which meant it wasn’t a very good matchup for Kim Cheol, who preferred to just beat things down head-on.
Kwawaaang!
Kugugugung!
“……Or maybe not?”
The vicious sounds were ferocious.
Jin Crow let out a hollow laugh and struggled desperately not to let go of the last thread of consciousness he was holding onto.
He considered injecting one more remaining Pentacle even now, but he didn’t have the strength to so much as twitch a finger, making that impossible.
And then.
“Instructor!”
“Find him! Hurry up and find him!”
He turned his head toward the familiar voices.
Then he saw a group of soldiers running in from beyond the ruins, and thankfully, they were wearing neither red uniforms nor the brown uniforms of the Defense Force.
‘Lee Hana, First Lieutenant. And Military Police?’
He suddenly realized that Obia Timist was nowhere to be seen, but soon shook his head.
If you never had expectations to begin with, you wouldn’t be disappointed.
“O-over there!”
“Move him quickly!”
They soon discovered the battered Jin Crow and rushed over in a panic, and as he took in that sight, he felt an inexplicable sense of relief. Slowly closing his eyes, he thought.
‘……Never again. Admissions Inspector.’
That was a rather serious vow.