The Player Who Stands Above All

Chapter 39

After the spar ended, Yeonhwa went into the forest alone and was quietly lost in thought.

"It seems your head is complicated in many ways."

Cheon Yuhwa approached him with a light smile.

He had already sensed her approaching him through his senses, but he just ignored her.

However, she didn't expect him to answer her kindly either.

"Well, it must have been the first time for you to see a guy like that."

In response to her playful words, his mouth slowly opened.

"Was this the reason you asked me to spar?"

She didn't deny it and honestly nodded.

"Well, I did have the intention of raising the standards of our guild members, but more than that, the purpose of letting you know that such a guy exists was bigger."

"What kind of guy is he?"

At his question, she gently shook her head.

"I'm sorry to make you so curious, but I don't know anything either."

"You didn't investigate?"

"No, I did investigate, but I couldn't find anything strange. Both in Pantheon and in reality."

"What were the results of the investigation?"

"His whereabouts in Pantheon are unknown. In reality, he's a completely ordinary person, except for the fact that he lived cooped up in his house."

Chuckle-

Hearing her words, he let out a chuckle in disbelief.

"Do you think it's possible for someone to live a normal life with that kind of killing intent in their body from birth?"

"I think it's natural for you to ask that, but I don't have anything to say either. Because that's really the result that came out."

It was a fact that everyone now knew that she was the daughter of the chairman of the Samcheon Group.

And the influence that the Samcheon Group had in a country like Korea was so great it could be called absolute.

"If it's something that can't be known even when such a place moves, it must mean that an organization of unimaginable size is involved."

"Or it means he was really that kind of guy from birth."

At her answer, he looked at her.

"Can you accept the situation that such a guy was born naturally?"

At his words, she smiled faintly and said.

"What can I do? It's a world that's already gone crazy, so something like this can happen."

At her words, which sounded somewhat self-deprecating, he once again recalled the spar he had with Lee Shin a moment ago in his mind.

The spar between him and Yeonhwa had ended with his self-destruction from overusing [Madness].

But the appearance he had shown during that time had made everyone present's blood run cold.

She was flustered by his appearance, which was stronger than she had expected, and he, despite having won against him, found it hard to accept his victory.

Tap- Tap-

He tapped his sword with his finger and recalled the attacks Lee Shin had unfolded in his mind.

Lee Shin had contained the immense killing intent in an instant and then, with surprising calmness, had unfolded one move after another, rushing to kill him.

The sight of him swinging his spear, restraining the endlessly soaring killing intent, was enough to give one the chills.

"If the difference between our weapons hadn't been overwhelming, it wouldn't have ended so simply."

"Probably so."

She nodded and, at the same time, racked her brain.

'I didn't think that guy would have reached LV.2... Did he have his own growth know-how?'

For her, the fact that he had become LV.2 was an unexpected factor.

Yeonhwa shook off Lee Shin’s killing intent, which was still clinging to his whole body, with his internal energy and asked her.

"Did you say there would be more spars in the future?"

"That's right. The spars will continue while we're raiding the dungeon. That was the condition for recruiting him."

"I see."

Leaving those words behind, he stood up.

From around him, who had organized all his thoughts, a cool energy, as if emitted by a well-sharpened sword, was being emitted.

He disappeared into the forest in that state.

She remained in that spot instead of chasing him.

Guessing whether the unexpected strength he had shown was one of the things that had changed when she fell into the past.

Thump-

At that moment, someone approached her from behind.

She, who had sensed the presence of the person approaching her through her widely spread senses, spoke nonchalantly.

"Did you treat that guy well?"

At her words, Kim Jae-hyun said in a voice mixed with a chuckle, as if he still found it absurd.

"I came back in the middle. I thought he was seriously injured enough to be dead, but he came to his senses in the middle and, saying he was hungry, rummaged through the restaurant and ate up the food. Thanks to that, two days' worth of food disappeared."

At his words, she ended her reaction by nodding calmly.

"That's like him. So what are the team leaders doing?"

"I only confirmed that they had spread out into the forest. They probably need time to think about various things."

"It's a relief that they seem to have felt something from watching the two fight."

When she returned to the past, she had looked for people who could become her hands, and the result was the five team leaders.

Therefore, she was trying to raise their skills whenever she had the chance like this.

'Well, the same goes for my butler, though.'

She asked him, who was making a face as if contemplating something, in a low voice.

"Are you anxious?"

"...Yes, honestly, I am."

He nodded calmly and admitted his feelings.

It was anxiety and fear toward him.

"Until now, I thought of him as a wild card that could turn a crisis around. But seeing him today, I feel like he's not a wild card that overturns a crisis, but a joker that you don't know how it will change the situation."

The killing intent he had shown at the end was not ordinary killing intent.

He had been raised in a facility as a hunting dog for his master since he was young, so he had felt a lot of sincere killing intent.

After meeting her, he had faced killing intent less often, but even so, he had not become so soft as to forget such things.

That's why he was even more surprised.

The killing intent he had shown for a moment was incomparable in quantity and quality to what he had felt so far.

'And the sight of him not stopping his attacks on Yeonhwa-nim until he was about to collapse, vomiting blood, was purely chilling.'

"I feel like I finally understand today why you said he was crazy, miss."

As if understanding his feelings, she nodded.

"It's true that I got the chills when I first saw that guy emit killing intent. He's a card I can't throw away."

"...Can I know the reason?"

At his words, she said as if it were obvious.

"Because he's strong. Strong enough to reach me and Yeonhwa."

"......"

He had nothing to say about that.

In fact, his attacks had reached Yeonhwa several times.

"And he's a troublesome guy, but he's not that reckless either. I don't know for sure, but that guy has a line he tries not to cross in his own way."

At those words, he recalled the sight of him asking Yeonhwa if it was okay to fight with the intention of killing him.

"And maybe because he still has little experience, he's much easier to handle compared to the guy I knew."

"...That guy?"

"Yeah."

At his words, she answered immediately.

She could be sure of that, if nothing else.

So much so that she was thinking that one of the fortuitous encounters she had gained after returning to the past was putting a leash on him.

"He's a knife without a handle, but he's too sharp to throw away, so I have to find a way to handle him and use him."

She said, laughing.

At that, he clutched his head as if he had a headache and sighed.

***

"Phew, I feel like I can live now that I've eaten and drunk a potion."

A night with a brightly shining moon.

Lee Shin went to the river, quenched his thirst once more, and then began to wash off the bloodstains on his body there.

As the hardened bloodstains were washed away by the cold river water, his head also gradually regained its composure.

"Come to think of it, it's the first time I've let it out like this."

He muttered, recalling the moment he had let out the killing intent that had always been pounding in his head and giving him a headache.

He had noticed that he was strange since he was young.

When he looked at people passing by on the street, the first thing that came to his mind was how to attack them to kill them easily.

"Hmm, but even after pouring out the killing intent, I don't feel particularly refreshed. Well, it's not like I actually killed anyone, so it would be stranger if it disappeared, right?"

He had expected this in the first place, but when nothing changed, he felt a little disappointed.

He leaned his back against a tree and stared blankly at the sky.

Ppadeuk-

"Haa~ Still, I can't help but feel bad."

Still, it had been a fun time, enough to forget everything for the first time since the Black Horned Rabbit.

He closed his eyes and replayed the events of the spar with Yeonhwa one by one.

His fingertips trembled along the trajectory of the spear, and his toes trembled along the movements of the footwork.

As he was mulling over the spar from a moment ago and eating it up one by one to make it his own, his eyes suddenly opened.

An incomprehensible error had occurred in the imaginary spar that had been continuing.

"But how was I able to go straight from [Flames] to [Lightning] back then?"

Lee Shin, just in case, created [Flames] in his dantian and then tried to create [Lightning].

At that, the [Flames] disappeared and returned to internal energy, and a short while later, the internal energy changed into [Lightning] and appeared.

A delay had occurred in the process of the two changing.

"Hmm, how was I able to go straight from [Flames] to [Lightning] without a delay during the spar?"

As he was thinking, recalling the memory of the spar, he felt like he had vaguely heard a system message and brought up the system log to look at it.

Then, he found a sentence that caught his eye.

-Extreme madness is encroaching on your body.

-[Atypical Madness] is beginning to awaken in response to your actions.

"What is this?"

But the moment he uttered those words, he was able to deduce the answer.

'Did it happen because of [Atypical Madness]?'

He thought for a moment, then activated [Madness] and looked at it calmly.

Then, his senses detected something different from before.

But it was hard to figure out specifically what had changed.

"Tsk... this is frustrating for the first time in a while."

He thought for a moment about what to do, then took out the spear he had put in his inventory and swung it.

"For now, if I just do the same thing as the spar with Yeonhwa a moment ago, I'll probably get a feel for something."

Having organized his thoughts, he swung his spear at the empty air.

Under the brightly shining moonlit night sky, flames and lightning continued to shine.

(End of Chapter)