novelraw Chapter 72
Chapter 72
Chapter 72
My opponent was breaking down my body with every passing second, and his body was breaking down even when he stayed still.
In the end, the body wouldn’t endure and would turn into a sludgy mash of blood. I swept my spear, and along its path the pitch-black Paradoxical Flame flared once and scattered.
“You too... a blank contract, right?”
No answer came. He only kept up that vicious clubbing aimed at me.
A blank contract was still a contract. There was always give and take. It was just that the exchange rate was absurd. You could call it a contract even if you traded lollipops and diamonds by weight, couldn’t you?
The contract he made with the already-dead Sohwi must have been to win his fight against me.
Of course, if a contract failed, there was a penalty. Even if the contractor was dead, contracts made through mana didn’t care about that.
If he failed to win against me, what price would be waiting for him?
The size of a penalty for breach usually depended on how difficult the fulfillment was.
The easier the contract, the bigger the penalty for failure, and the harder the contract, the smaller the penalty.
If the condition of fulfillment for someone like Ballea, with his level of power, was to beat someone like me, then the penalty would probably be...
“Demotion in rank? Or confinement?”
At my words, Ballea halted the club he was swinging at me.
— What are you?
“Someone who knows a lot. And someone who can do a lot.”
I wasn’t a mage who studied mana, so I didn’t know theory or formulas well. But at least on Earth, there wasn’t anyone with more hands-on experience using mana than me, or who had handled more objects imbued with every kind of mana.
Even if you never studied architecture, you couldn’t ignore twenty years of experience on construction sites. Maybe not in every area, but in some, you’d have know-how beyond a PhD.
“Looks like you don’t have long. Maybe three minutes.”
Now I could see the collapse with the naked eye. Not the flesh, but the blood channels coursing through his whole body were breaking. It was like pipes bursting under water pressure.
— It is enough.
“If you say that with a voice that uncertain, people will only laugh at you.”
With a thunderous boom, the club came swinging again. Naturally, the output of mana he spewed was on a level far beyond mine. All I could do was cycle through blocking and evading, then getting hammered again.
But if I kept breathing for three minutes, I would win. When the body he inhabited shattered, he would have to return. And because he failed to fulfill the contract with dead Sohwi, he would pay a massive penalty.
Thud, the club slammed into me again. I was blasted skyward, at least 3 to 5 km off the ground, and I vomited blood in great gouts.
God, I’m dying.
I saw Ballea leap after me to spike me back down, his disgusting club of flesh swinging for my head.
“Feeling real crappy, aren’t you?”
I reached my foot toward one of the blue trails lingering around me. The trail struck my leg. With a clang, the trail’s attack slammed into the plate guarding my leg.
The impact caromed me sideways. Ballea’s repulsive meat-club smashed nothing but empty air.
“Idiot.”
Thanks to that uppercut I took earlier, practically every bone in my body was wrecked. But I could still laugh.
His time was up.
“You should’ve killed me with that last strike.”
Ballea and I fell together. His body was crumbling by degrees. At last, his blood and meridian channels, unable to withstand the enormous mana, were all smashed to pieces.
Mana, packed with destructive force, lost its route and pulped the body into slurry.
“Bye, see you next time. Actually, I don’t know when you can come back... if you come back soon, you won’t be flaunting power like this.”
A being that strong had failed to fulfill a contract. If he got an excursion ban, it would be at least a few hundred years. If it was demotion in rank instead of a ban, then the next time he showed himself in this world, he would never wield such overwhelming strength.
At the sight of Sohwi’s melting body, I forced my arm up and flipped him the middle finger.
— Nothing changes. Your fate is coming. And you have already fallen from our sight. You will meet an end one step more terrible than the most miserable death you can imagine.
I snorted and closed my eyes.
“Your mother.”
I was seconds from slamming into the ground when my speed began to slow. Something pushed at my back, easing the fall little by little.
Han Sang-ah’s mana. She was using her ability to magnetize my body and, with that force, reduce my descent speed.
My fall continued to decelerate, and soon I came to rest atop the sparring stage, which had been completely wrecked.
“Are you alive?”
“Yeah.”
Han Sang-ah nodded.
“Your body is totaled. You need to focus on recovery.”
She checked her phone, then said,
“Still, the emergency bounty the Hunter Association put on this incident is pretty decent, so even after hospital fees and whatever treatment you need, you’ll have some money left.”
“Are you not worried at all about me by the way?”
She kept her eyes on her screen.
“If I worry, will your bones glue back themselves?”
“That’s true.”
I expected too much from you. She kept scrolling and said,
“After Sohwi’s body twisted up like that, the livestream stayed on for about twenty to thirty minutes. Everyone saw that unknown thing that took over Sohwi’s body fighting you.”
On top of that, a few quickly edited videos had already been uploaded.
“I talked to my grandpa. We can use a hospital under the Geumyang Group’s medical center at a pretty cheap rate. Almost a sixty-five percent discount.”
“And the catch?”
She answered,
“There’s a company called Jeonghwa Group, used to be a Geumyang subsidiary. They focus on the media. They run a private broadcast station.”
“So I have to do an interview?”
She nodded.
“Jeonghwa started from the Jeonghwa Daily under Geumyang, then split off and grew on its own.”
Split off in name only, it seemed. They were still cozy with each other.
“They want an exclusive interview and a few program appearances.”
“Tell them to eat taffy. I’ll pay full price.”
Getting tangled up like that would only get in my way. I wasn’t about to get a ring through my nose to save a buck.
“Got it, I texted them to eat taffy like you said. I asked a hospital partnered with the Hunter Association for cooperation instead.”
“Wait, what.”
I didn’t mean for you to send that literally! My head spun. I was about to pass out. If I didn’t end up in a coffin, I’d wake up in a hospital bed.
My vision went black, and when I came to, I was in a hospital. I turned my head. Jung Oh-hoon was peeling an apple beside me.
“Son of a...”
He looked at me.
“The first words when you wake up are curses?”
“How would you feel if the first thing you saw was a scruffy guy with man-musk peeling an apple by your bed?”
He nodded.
“Fair. I never thought I’d be the guy with stubble peeling an apple in another guy’s hospital room either.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
If you hate it, then don’t. Did someone slap a bomb collar on him and threaten him to nurse me?
“Han Sang-ah stepped out, and I need money.”
“Money?”
He kept peeling.
“I watched you fight once I got to my spot. It was something else.”
At a time like this, he picked praise over explanations.
“Especially the last part.”
“You saw me take that club and rocket skyward, and you feel like you got back at me for beating you up, huh?”
“It felt truly great.”
He meant it.
“But when that club launched you into the air, you were smiling.”
“You got good eyes.”
He tapped his eyes.
“Special grade. I can see things far away a lot better than other Hunters, at least.”
He stared at me.
“Sohwi... Or was that thing even Sohwi anymore? Anyway, from the moment that monster launched you, you knew his body would collapse. Otherwise, I can’t explain that smile.”
“Who knows. Maybe I wanted to die.”
Jung Oh-hoon burst out laughing, shoved a slice of apple into his mouth, and crunched, watching me.
“Anyway, I smell money on you.”
“So you’re going to stick with me?”
He patted the pocket with his wallet.
“As long as you keep stuffing this. You said I had a goal I wanted more than money, but I still need money to reach it.”
“Fine. At least I’ll make sure there’s no drought in your wallet.”
“Good,” he said, and offered me a slice. I stared at it, then looked at him.
“Why, not your taste? Want me to carve it like a rabbit?”
“Don’t sit here peeling apples for me. Go train.”
He still had a lot to fix before I could take him to clear Jaun Valley, the grade 1 Erosion Core.
* * *
A man who had just been watching the fight from a nearby building wore a dazed look.
“Wow. He survived that?”
Kim Chaehyun, Partner Hunter for Mugunghwa Company Team One, twirled the butterfly knife in his hand and muttered. After contracting with the government, he had been waiting on a tall building to prevent contingencies per orders.
“Lucky. Was that luck? Maybe.”
By all rights, that kid Yoo Chan-seok should have died there. He wouldn’t have been able to move more, and he would have been killed by whatever had taken over Sohwi’s body.
But on the verge of the final blow, Sohwi’s body suddenly collapsed, and Yoo Chan-seok survived. The question was whether Yoo Chan-seok planned it, or whether it just happened.
“Lee Se-eun said she was keeping an eye on him.”
He was worth it. Bright future. The government had told Kim Chaehyun to move in once Yoo Chan-seok died. If not for that, he probably would have charged in long ago for a joint assault.
“He was too good to waste by killing. Good thing I didn’t have to. Or is it a shame actually?”
In truth, Mugunghwa was smaller than Jannabi or Taebaek. Even so, it stood shoulder to shoulder with those two Hunter companies for one reason: Kim Chaehyun’s name sat at number five on the List of Hope.
No one even knew what the number one senior was doing or where. Numbers two to four were free spirits who drifted around enjoying wealthy lives and their social circles.
“They called it the Wonder Club, right? They’ll reach out to that kid soon enough.”
It was like a secret club the List of Hope ranks two to four had made. They shared info, bragged to each other about the fame and wealth they’d built, drank and partied.
Those in the two to four slots were living happy lives basking in the eager flattery of other Hunters in that little club.
Anyway, the point was that among company-affiliated Hunters, the strongest position right now was Kim Chaehyun’s.
“I could have made him owe me his life.”
After wearing that regretful look for a while, Kim Chaehyun finally stood. In the end, there had been no need for him to step in.