The Player Who Stands Above All

Chapter 162

"…So, what do you want me to do?"

Cheon Yuhwa opened her mouth, looking straight at Lee Shin.

Was it because of the dilemma she had felt countless times after returning to the past?

Cheon Yuhwa's voice, directed at Lee Shin, was trembling slightly.

But Cheon Yuhwa's pupils, as she looked at Lee Shin, were not trembling, and they were shining sharply, glaring at him as if to chew him up for treating her worries as foolish.

What was contained within was not an impulsive anger.

It was the sticky lump itself that had been accumulating since Cheon Yuhwa had returned to the past.

"What do you want to say? Are you trying to persuade me to live as I please, like you, because I'll die before my time from stress if I live like that?"

"That seems to be the best option, but… in the first place, if you were the type to change just because I told you to, you would have been doing that before I even said anything."

"…What, as if there's really another way."

As Cheon Yuhwa said with a slightly calmed face, Lee Shin spoke.

"It's not grand enough to be called a method, but there is one."

"What, what is it?"

Cheon Yuhwa's eyes widened, but she just stared at Lee Shin, as if trying to suppress her expectations, and did not rush him.

As if it didn't matter whether Cheon Yuhwa did or not, Lee Shin said lightly.

"It's simple. You draw a line."

At Lee Shin's words, Cheon Yuhwa's face turned cold.

"Are you telling me to draw a line and distinguish between the people I have to save and the people I have to abandon?"

"Well, in terms of results, it's similar, but a little different."

'By the way, why am I suddenly talking about this?'

As the conversation got longer and longer, a fundamental question arose in Lee Shin's head, who was getting tired of talking.

But since he had already talked this far, and it was annoying to try to recall, Lee Shin decided to just focus on moving his mouth.

"What I'm saying is to draw a line between what you can do and what you want. To put it a little differently, you could also say it's about knowing your limits properly."

"…What, it's not a proper method in the first place. Is something going to change with that?"

At Cheon Yuhwa's words, Lee Shin shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"I wonder? I can't be sure about that either, but it worked for me, so maybe it will for you too?"

"What? This was your experience?"

At Cheon Yuhwa's words, Lee Shin nodded his head nonchalantly.

"Yes, it's my experience. In the first place, it's common sense that you can't just ramble on about something you haven't even experienced."

"No, if you think about it logically, that's true, but…"

Cheon Yuhwa looked at Lee Shin with eyes that were looking at something strange.

Because the Lee Shin in Cheon Yuhwa's head was that far removed from the act of being stressed by something mental and the act of observing common sense.

"Well, anyway, it got a little better for me when I did that."

"…Hoo, that's enough."

Cheon Yuhwa, who had been flustered by Lee Shin's words, calmed her agitation and said.

"Even if it's effective, I'll just stay as I am now. I don't want to draw a line and blame the rest of what I couldn't do on my limits."

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

Lee Shin smiled playfully and extended one hand as if pushing something away.

"If you've drawn a line for your limits, now you have to keep pushing that line."

At Lee Shin's words, Cheon Yuhwa said with disbelief.

"…That's just telling me to keep pushing my limits and overdo it. In the end, it's the same as now."

"Well, that's true."

Lee Shin readily nodded his head and agreed with Cheon Yuhwa's words.

"But in the first place, what you want is impossible. It's not hypnosis, and there's no way a person's thoughts can change so drastically with just one mindset."

"…It's so awkward to see you say something normal."

"What, I think I'm going to get hurt~"

Lee Shin chuckled as he watched Cheon Yuhwa tremble as if she were creeped out.

"Sigh, you can go home or do whatever you want. I'm going to help people…"

"Uhm, I don't think that's a good idea."

Lee Shin said that and pointed in one direction with his finger.

"Waaaah!!!"

"There's a monster running away over there!"

"Corner it! Trap it! Kill it!"

There, people who were injured and exhausted, gasping for breath, were desperately swinging their weapons and attacking the monsters.

"For now, it's right to just back off at this point. You have to let them have the experience of the mobs so that the other guys can grow too."

For people, the past three days had been a time of adversity and hardship mixed with despair.

That's why the Players who had survived that rough time had all grown to a level incomparable to before.

In order to raise one's skills, hardship is inevitably necessary.

And in a modern society like this, humans who can really risk their lives in a fight are very rare.

They want to become stronger for their own desires, but in order to become stronger, they need to risk their lives.

It existed as a kind of paradox and held the Players' feet.

That feeling was the fundamental reason why the Players' growth had stagnated.

But for the past three days, the Players had no choice but to forcibly break the shackles that had been holding their feet.

And so, they broke their comfortable shells and struggled to survive, naturally breaking the limits that had been blocking them.

"Besides, right now, they're in a state where they've forgotten everything in the excitement of having seized the momentum and are just focusing on swinging their weapons."

A kind of trance.

A moment of growth that would become an experience that could raise their skills at once.

Catching the monsters they were facing now was not helping them.

It was an act of breaking the wings that could fly high.

"Now, you see? It's more comfortable for us and better for them if we just leave them alone."

"Ahahaha… Was I trying to protect them too much?"

Cheon Yuhwa listened to Lee Shin's words and stared blankly at the people fighting.

Pajik- Pajijik-

She felt something that had been covering her eyes slowly breaking.

"Then I'm going home now."

Lee Shin grumbled that he was tired from rambling on because he had wanted to return to Korea comfortably, and moved his feet to go home.

"Wait, hold on."

"What, is there something you want to say?"

But Cheon Yuhwa stopped him.

"It's nothing much, I'm just curious about something."

"Huh? What is it?"

Lee Shin said that and turned his head, but Cheon Yuhwa was still looking at the fight happening in the distance and was not looking at him.

"Normally, a guy who would have teased me for a moment and then disappeared, no matter what I said, why did you ramble on so uncharacteristically?"

"Hmm, I wonder…"

At Cheon Yuhwa's words, Lee Shin briefly recalled a memory from his childhood.

"Is it because I remembered a time when I suffered from useless worries?"

When he was young and had to resist the impulse that constantly tempted him while looking at people, Lee Shin had drawn a line for himself, just as he had told Cheon Yuhwa now.

Behind the line the young Lee Shin had drawn were his parents.

"When you were young?"

"Even if you ask, I won't tell you that much."

'A clear head isn't always a good thing. Too many useless thoughts come in.'

Lee Shin thought that and quickly disappeared from the spot, as if telling her not to catch him this time.

At that, Cheon Yuhwa glanced at the spot where Lee Shin had been and was lost in thought.

"A line…"

As Cheon Yuhwa muttered that, she raised one hand and moved it lightly from left to right.

Woong-

And the aura at the tip of Cheon Yuhwa's finger shone brightly and drew a single line along the trajectory of her hand.

"…Shall I eat something sweet, then wash up and go to sleep."

Cheon Yuhwa, who had been looking at the line for a moment, turned her back on the ruined city and moved her steps.

And the corners of Cheon Yuhwa's mouth, although she herself was unaware, were slightly raised.

'Nothing has changed from a moment ago, but it's strange how my heart is at ease.'

***

The dungeon break, which seemed like it would continue endlessly, stopped.

But just because monsters weren't coming out of the dungeons didn't mean a miracle would happen where the dead or injured people and the destroyed city would return to their original state.

The city was still destroyed, and the people were still injured.

"Ugh! Kill them!"

"Wooo! Take my sword that has become LV.3!"

"Hahaha! Is this all you've got now that the numbers are gone!"

But for the people, that was enough.

Because just that one thing made them feel as if they had found a light in a dark fog.

The monsters that had been wandering the city began to be driven out of the city by the combined attack of the guilds and Players.

As the city gradually became safer, the people who had been hiding began to come out, and people began to build the cornerstone for rebuilding the city to its original state.

Pisyung-

But one place, the internet, had already been completely normalized.

As the situation began to calm down to some extent, people began to access the internet to gather even a little more information.

Diring-!

Diring-!

Diring-!

And in the chaotic situation, some people began to release the pictures and videos they had taken in their spare time on the internet one by one.

And starting with them, people continued to share the pictures they had.

In the internet galleries, numerous people had already gathered and were talking about what had happened this time.

And naturally, one of the topics they were talking about most enthusiastically was the appearance of the Players fighting the monsters, and at its peak was the Ten Kings.

-Look at Hercules bursting a troll's head in one blow with his muscles! That's the fighting style of a real man!

-Where does a ground-pounder who just swings a club at close range get off! Our Oz-noona flew around on a broom and blew away all the monsters with magic! She struck a pose with her arms crossed to emphasize her large chest and then overwhelmed everyone with her noona smile!

-The spectacular battle of Baekho, where various divine beasts make a grand appearance, is the real deal! Look at that stylish appearance!

-These guys don't know how to look at people. Isn't our angel Uriel, who can both heal and deal damage and has both a gentle charm and a mature charm, the strongest?

-Look at how low-level this is. Isn't Alice, who overwhelms monsters with a laser beam from her slightly unfocused eyes, the strongest! You can clearly see the leisure and laziness of the strongest flowing out as decadent beauty and languor!

-What, you're not picking Arachne, who has a dangerous yet sexy feeling? You're not picking Arachne, who has the charm of a beastly woman?!?!

Although it seemed like something strange was mixed in in the middle and the content of the conversation had been completely altered by the end, it wasn't particularly important.

Because the galleries were always like this.

In fact, among the posts that were there now, there was also a post that had uploaded a picture of orcs wearing fluorescent team vests as a group.

It was their own way of coping, to laugh and talk and try to ignore reality for a moment.

And so, numerous stories were written on the bulletin board, and among them, there was also this.

A story about a red-haired spearman wearing a black mask.

A mysterious martial artist Player who appears in the battlefield where the most blood is flowing, clad in lightning, and swings a spear wreathed in flames.

Up to this point, it was just a common internet ghost story, but as evidence that that person actually existed continued to pop up through pictures and videos, people soon changed their minds.

And as interest gathered, the man in the mask naturally got a nickname.

The long version was Flame Lightning Spear Ghost, and the short version was Spear Ghost.

(End of Chapter)