novelraw Chapter 67
Chapter 67
Chapter 67
Baek Hwi-young’s ability looked simple at a glance, but that was in fact a chronic problem possessed by martial artists without a family or a school.
What was martial arts?
Forms and combat patterns.
The upper body, lower body, and footwork fused together into a single stance (勢), and a sequence of such stances was what was called a form.
Because there was no family or school, one had to walk one’s own path using only the most basic forms.
Those of the ability-type looked at such martial artists and mocked them as ignorant and inefficient.
However, that was precisely why they took up weapons.
‘The history of humanity was a history of struggle.’
Lacking sharp teeth like other animals, lacking wings to fly through the sky, and lacking even tough hides or massive bodies, humans grasped stones, and instinctively began to study for the sake of more efficient violence.
Thus, warriors were born.
They were called warriors by some, assassins by others, sometimes knights, soldiers, and occasionally even thieves.
But their martial prowess was passed down.
Because violence was the most efficient and certain means to stop new violence.
-But wasn’t martial arts meaningless in the 21st century?
As that saying went, in the era in which they lived, martial arts became a meaningless struggle in the face of firearms and firepower.
And so martial arts discarded their claws.
They abandoned the function of killing, and instead maximized the functions of physical training and performance for others to see, eventually succeeding in becoming ‘sports’.
Why was that?
The reason was simple.
Because in front of bullets and gunpowder, mere ‘physical training’ had its limits.
No matter how powerfully one shouted banzai with mental resolve and brought a Japanese sword down on a tank, in the end one would only be crushed beneath the tank’s treads into a nicely made human waffle.
Ah, the shape wouldn’t look very good, though.
‘Humans were certainly weak.’
Back when humanity was still trapped on its distant homeland, and at the present time the capital of the Human Composite State, Earth, humanity had indeed been terribly weak.
However, as cognition expanded and they became able to see the world they stood in more clearly, the situation changed drastically.
Psionic energy (Psionics Energy).
The ways of handling that unknown power that manifested in superhumans differed from person to person, but many superhumans soon grasped cold weapons, just as the warriors of the past once had.
Why was that?
The reason was simple.
‘……Because it’s the simplest, and that much more destructive.’
Cough, Jin Crow stopped his stray thoughts and slowly raised his body.
Setting aside the thick dust cloud that muddled his vision, he had to check whether Beatus, who was blissfully unconscious beside him, was alive or dead.
Fortunately, he was breathing.
Feeling at least somewhat relieved, Jin Crow brushed the dust off his shoulder, then, after checking that there wasn’t much time left on the drug addiction timer floating in the corner, slipped a hand into his coat.
Swoosh-.
He briefly considered smoking a cigarette, but soon opened his hip flask and swallowed a mouthful.
‘There was no telling how long the fight would continue.’
If so, wasn’t it better to take something that would last a bit longer?
Kwaaaaaaang!
Kwaddeudeuk!
Of course, even in the very moment he was thinking that and drinking the contents of the hip flask, beyond the dust the battle between Baek Hwi-young and Jimmy Silver continued.
Naturally, from Jin Crow’s perspective, his blood pressure could only rise.
“……You came to a place you shouldn’t have. You stupid bastard.”
To be honest, when he first saw it, he hadn’t been angry.
But when Baek Hwi-young abruptly slammed a technique that was practically an opening-stage finishing move into not even the surface but the fifth underground floor, then rolled across the ground covered in dust, his senses snapped awake.
‘Why would a guy who normally went to colonial planets during his first vacation to look for Oparts…?’
He couldn’t count how many main Oparts Baek Hwi-young had carried around in the story, but he remembered that most of them had been obtained by carving out time during vacations back in his cadet days.
Then at a glance, it might have seemed natural that he had come to this Free Planetary Alliance where ‘Nectar’ was said to exist, but he only searched for Oparts that were certain.
In other words, it meant that originally, at this point in time, he should not have come to the Free Planetary Alliance where Nectar might not even exist.
‘Did he find proof that it exists, or is it simply for some other reason?’
Jin Crow pondered as he stared at the silhouettes of the two men coming into view beyond the gradually clearing dust.
However, his contemplation could not last very long.
“……Unbelievable.”
Because once the dust cleared, the revealed underground scene was even more disastrous than he had expected.
First of all, setting aside the fact that the area of the hole in the ceiling that Jimmy Silver had broken through while grabbing Beatus had doubled in size, the ground, which had been fairly well finished, had split and collapsed. The pillars too had their concrete cracked, exposing the rebar inside.
And to put the finishing touch on it, the spear tips that Baek Hwi-young had personally driven down one by one traced a circle and left scars on the earth, making the scene look as though a claymore mine had gone off, vividly showing why Special-duty officers were treated as strategic weapons.
“……Ptoo. That’s intense! Hahahahahahaha!”
At that moment, Jimmy Silver, who had been trading blows with Baek Hwi-young for quite some time, made the muscles supporting his massive body twitch once and spoke as if he were enjoying himself.
It seemed he hadn’t been able to completely block the sudden assault, as he was bleeding from various places while receiving Baek Hwi-young’s continuing attacks.
The axe was nowhere to be seen, and on top of that, he was bare-handed.
However, as Jin Crow watched Baek Hwi-young holding his own in the fight, he soon found himself narrowing his brows, unable to stop staring at him with eyes full of doubt.
‘Why was he so rushed?’
No, could what he was seeing really be described simply as ‘rushed’?
Baek Hwi-young’s spear technique was characterized by its conciseness and finesse.
Boldness was merely a personal trait, and through experiences accumulated while living along a different timeline than others, he had engraved into his body the ability to always unfold the most optimal move.
But what was unfolding before his eyes now was different.
Like a wolf that had gone days without food and was wounded, struggling desperately one last time before its breath ran out, the tip of Baek Hwi-young’s spear was impatient and ferocious, and because of that, it was gradually losing strength.
‘This is dangerous.’
There was no way Jimmy Silver wouldn’t feel what Baek Hwi-young himself was feeling.
And sure enough.
The moment the tip of Baek Hwi-young’s spear wavered, Jimmy Silver made his overwhelming muscles writhe and deliberately shoved his palm into the spear tip, then grabbed the shaft with his other hand and whispered low.
“Checkmate, you suckling brat.”
Kwaddeuddeuk!
He tore the spear shaft apart, then rolled his shoulder and charged straight at his opponent.
Baek Hwi-young discarded the broken shaft without hesitation and pulled out a spare spear, but it was already too late.
Kwaaaaaaaang!
With a thunderous roar, Baek Hwi-young was crushed head-on by the empty cage and sent flying through the air without even a groan of pain or a dying scream, soon tumbling to a stop near Jin Crow.
“Cough.”
A breath expelled like a dry cough.
As Jin Crow looked at him now lying close by, he finally realized why Baek Hwi-young was abnormal and could only mutter a curse under his breath.
“……Fuck, this is driving me insane.”
“…….”
Baek Hwi-young’s eyes were bloodshot, his gaze fixed solely on Jimmy Silver.
At a glance, it looked as though he had lost his mind or as if the middle-schooler Baek Hwi-young buried deep inside him had awakened, but it was slightly different.
‘Those are the eyes you have when you look at an archenemy.’
How many obstacles that had interfered with him had he encountered while going through countless regressions?
Sometimes it was time itself, sometimes it was resources, and sometimes it was the mistakes of allies.
However, what Baek Hwi-young had realized in the story—specifically in the chapters of the original novel that Jin Crow had read—was exceedingly simple.
-Incompetent allies, competent enemies. They must be killed no matter what.
He declared that for humanity, and moreover for all sapient beings living in this galaxy, that was something that absolutely had to be done in order to survive.
And those eyes were the kind you had when looking at an enemy that ‘absolutely’ had to be killed.
……When seen from Baek Hwi-young’s perspective in the novel, it had looked pretty cool, but seeing it up close like this, it was unpleasant in many ways.
No matter how handsome he was, bloodshot eyes that seemed to be chewing over ‘I’ll kill you. I’ll definitely kill you.’ while his hair was disheveled made the back of one’s neck itch for no reason.
“Now that I look at it, you’re all in cahoots. Black-haired Tom and ash-gray-haired Jerry, huh. Interesting.”
Meanwhile, Jimmy Silver, who seemed to have regenerated all his wounds in the meantime, showed off his muscles between the many tears in his white shirt and smiled unpleasantly.
For some reason, the guy who kept going on about cats since earlier rubbed him the wrong way.
Why cats, of all things?
He twisted his brows and opened his mouth.
Paaaang!
No—he was about to open it.
“……Baek Hwi-young. Five demerit points.”
If only Baek Hwi-young, whose eyes had completely rolled back, hadn’t charged at the bastard again at that very moment.
In the end, Jin Crow could only sigh and follow after him.
“Hahahahahaha! That’s it! Come at me! I am none other than the Titan’s ‘Jimiar Sirune Vi A’!”
Since the bastard was apparently having so much fun that he even confessed his species name and full name without being asked, Jin Crow carved a line across his triceps with his sword.
The tip of Baek Hwi-young’s spear aimed precisely for the bastard’s neck, and at the same time, Jimmy Silver’s massive fist aimed precisely for Jin Crow’s face.
“Ghk!”
In that split second, he leaned his face back and raised his shoulder to take the blow.
However, as the impact sent him flying through the air and slammed him into a cage in the corner, low, frightened wheezing voices could be heard from a group of people inside who were trembling and desperately hoping the situation would somehow come to an end.
“……Ptoo.”
Now was not the time to worry about them.
They might be superhumans, but most of them were clearly gaunt from not eating or sleeping properly, so it was obvious they wouldn’t be much help in terms of combat power.
“Tsk, the kid’s eyes are already messed up. This is all because the milk these days is bad. Back in my day, fresh-squeezed on Olympias Hill…… Guhk!”
In that fleeting moment, Jin Crow drove his sword along the bastard’s spine as it held Baek Hwi-young by the nape, and immediately after, Baek Hwi-young swung the bent spear tip and severed the bastard’s tendon, slipping free from his grasp.
“……Guhk!”
It seemed the damage had finally started to pile up, as the bastard slightly furrowed his brows and swung a fist toward Jin Crow behind him.
Kwaaaaang!
He blocked it, twisted his body at once, and avoided Jimmy Silver’s kick that followed and slammed into the floor, creating a brief lull.
“……Haaak. Huh.”
Baek Hwi-young seemed to be getting tired as well, as a low groan leaked out between his tightly clenched lips.
“……Hoo.”
Jin Crow wiped his face once with his hand, streaked with dust, blood, and sweat, and put a cigarette to his lips.
“……Did I enjoy this a bit too much. Tsk.”
As his head cooled somewhat, Jimmy Silver realized the factory had been completely wrecked and smiled bitterly.
How many seconds passed with that brief stalemate continuing?
“Hwi-young!”
“Instructor!”
“Jin Crow!”
Hearing the sound of quite a few people coming down through the gaping hole in the ceiling, Jimmy Silver finally shook his head as if it couldn’t be helped and spoke.
“Can’t be helped. See you next time, Tom and Jerry.”
“Says who.”
Jin Crow tried to charge at Jimmy Silver, who was obviously preparing to flee, but this time, he was faster.
Beep-.
When he pressed a button he must have been holding all along, one side of the underground wall opened.
All that could be seen was pitch-black darkness.
However, when a series of gleaming eyes lit up beyond that darkness, Jin Crow instinctively muttered, filled with surging curses and disgust.
“……We’re fucked.”
-Grrrrrk.
They were Creature Pawns, easily dozens of them.