Chapter 83 : Chapter 83
Chapter 83
Yun Jeongseop before my eyes—no, the werewolf—stared at me as if measuring my skill.
His gaze carried a killing intent that was difficult to put into words.
Watching those eyes that looked ready to shred an opponent’s flesh to ribbons, my Demonic Eye felt pitifully inadequate for a brief moment.
“Grrr…”
Still, how was I supposed to deal with Yun Jeongseop?
If his body had been altered by mana, the simplest method would be to restrict his mana with Bind.
But if I tried to suppress that vast mana I could see through my Demonic Eye, there was a high chance I would lose consciousness instead.
More importantly, as long as a full moon hung in the sky, his mana would not dry up easily.
That left the option of luring him somewhere unaffected by moonlight, but drawing a predator that had already locked onto its prey was no simple matter.
Because with my strength and stamina, I had no way to win a battle of attrition.
Using Stealth was also a significant risk.
If Yun Jeongseop moved toward the village at the foot of the mountain or back toward the lodges, it would spiral into an irreversible situation. And if I ran into Hunters coming up from who knew which direction, it would be a disaster.
“……”
In the end, the best decision I could make was to bring Yun Jeongseop down right here.
Fortunately, fighting where no one could see was my specialty.
Because I could spread my shadows without restraint.
“Grr!”
As if his probing was finished, Yun Jeongseop charged in without giving me an opening.
His movement was so fast that if I had not been using my Demonic Eye, I might have mistaken it for an attack without any warning.
I raised my sword to meet the claws that came down at a razor angle.
But the moment he reached me, his form vanished from my sight.
No—he had moved so nimbly to my rear that it felt as though he had disappeared.
A movement I could not have reacted to without agility and the Demonic Eye…
I spun and slashed toward the claws aiming for my back, but Yun Jeongseop’s claws grazed my shoulder first.
“Hng…!”
If I had even a little more strength, I could have blocked it with my blade.
Before I could even regret it, Yun Jeongseop vanished from my sight again.
This time, he aimed above my head, seeking my blind spot.
He was as large as any monster, yet he moved with shameless craftiness. Which meant he possessed overwhelming physical ability and intelligence.
…Contrary to my original setting.
“Grrk!”
Yun Jeongseop’s claws moved again, sharp and precise.
But perhaps because of his hang time, this time I managed to raise the back of the blade and block before the strike landed.
CLANG!
A clear metallic scrape rang out where claw met steel.
And yet, amid that sound, there was another noise that should not have been there.
A faint creak, like metal cracking.
I shoved hard with the back of the blade and swung him away. Yun Jeongseop retreated several paces without following through.
“Grrrr…”
He sounded irritated that his attack had failed.
In that brief window, I held my sword forward and checked the blade.
On the surface, it looked fine.
But the sound of cracking had been unmistakable.
There was no way my senses at Agility 20 had hallucinated it.
Yun Jeongseop attacked again.
This time he came straight at me, as if challenging me to a contest of strength.
Each time his thick thighs stamped the ground, the impact rumbled like boulders tumbling nearby.
That weight-laden claw cut another sharp arc, and I swung my sword in haste to deflect it.
And then—
CRACK—!
With a piercing shatter, the blade snapped into fragments.
“…!”
There was no time to be shocked.
Yun Jeongseop’s enormous maw had already lunged forward, aiming to bite and crush my throat.
“Grrk!”
Instinctively, I used Shadow Severance.
Shadow Severance separated my shadow and allowed me to evade physical attacks.
Blunt, brutal jaws clamped down where my neck should have been, yet I slipped through those fangs as if by a lie, widening the distance between us.
It felt as though I had become translucent for a moment.
But I could not maintain that state for long.
My mana was draining at a terrifying rate.
“Damn it…!”
Yun Jeongseop did not stop. He kept coming.
I threw the shattered Hyeonseong sword to the ground and pulled out the Mist-Clearing Sword from my inventory.
The Mist-Clearing Sword was forged from Platium, a metal specialized for dark attribute. That meant it would not be particularly effective against Yun Jeongseop, who was earth-aspected, but no matter how the battle unfolded, it was certain this blade would not break.
The problem was that while holding the Mist-Clearing Sword, I could not use certain abilities.
“Grr!”
My Demonic Eye read his movement precisely again.
He rushed in with a brutish motion, as if trying to knock me down outright.
I quickly used Erosion to erode the surrounding shadows.
As I adjusted my grip and stared straight at the charging Yun Jeongseop, the reason for the dissonance I had been feeling finally struck me.
“……”
The Yun Jeongseop of the original story was a werewolf who had been injected with the mana of a wolf-type monster.
A creature that was, if you were being honest, nothing special.
For him to possess such immense mana, wield such explosive strength, and move with intelligence like this was impossible.
Yes, he was still a werewolf bearing a wolf’s form, but his size and the color of his fur proved that he was a higher-tier wolf-type monster.
In that case, there was only one answer.
A monster that guided monsters who died leaving resentment into a proper death—Gwiinrang.
It had to be.
Among the higher-tier wolf-type monsters recorded in my setting notes, only one had a silver mane.
I had no idea how Camellia had obtained Gwiinrang’s genetic traits, but demanding plausibility from an intervention rate manipulated by a devoted reader was a waste of time.
Gwiinrang was one of the rare monsters I had written into the setting notes while designing materials for the items Lee Eunho would eventually obtain.
In the end, since it had not been used for Lee Eunho’s items, it had never appeared in the original story—but its strength would not differ much from my setting.
Which meant…
“Kwo…!”
If I continued close combat like this, the likelihood of my body being torn apart was high.
I swung the Mist-Clearing Sword in a wide arc toward the charging Yun Jeongseop.
As if he had anticipated it, he dropped his body abruptly to evade the blade, then thrust his snout toward my thigh—the leg supporting my stance.
“…!”
In that instant, I shoved the Mist-Clearing Sword back into my inventory, used Shadow Severance, and once again widened the distance between us.
“Huff… hng… ha…”
I had only used Shadow Severance twice, yet my breathing was already starting to strain.
I immediately downed a mana potion, but it was not only mana.
The backlash of using a broken ability was also taking a toll on my body.
Worse, Erosion was undone as well.
I tried to maintain it, but the full moon rising behind Yun Jeongseop completely dominated the environmental mana around us.
“I should have brought Lee Eunho…”
If it were him, he would have burned Yun Jeongseop to ash.
Swallowing a curse, I gripped the Mist-Clearing Sword again.
How could I bring Yun Jeongseop down?
If he were just an ordinary werewolf like in the original story, I would not be agonizing like this, but the wolf before me was Gwiinrang—a monster whose setting strength rivaled a dragon.
Even if this was a degraded half-version, it was still far too much for a mere Hero Prep cadet to handle.
If only I could get him out from under the full moon’s influence, I would have a chance, but…
“…!”
While I was thinking, Yun Jeongseop kicked off the ground again.
I sprinted forward to meet him.
Defending alone was meaningless.
If time and stamina were lacking, the best solution was to subdue the opponent first.
Of course, I had no intention of taking him head-on.
My specialty was ambush—honed until it sickened me under An Hwigom.
“Grrk!”
Perhaps my provocative movement startled him, because Yun Jeongseop hesitated mid-charge.
I seized that opening and moved to his rear.
Even as I took his back, Yun Jeongseop could not turn his head to follow.
My movement was that overwhelming, but because my strength could not support it, my leg muscles screamed under the strain.
Still, if I could inflict a critical wound, it would be a risk worth enduring.
Without delay, I swung the Mist-Clearing Sword.
My target was both ankles, to limit his movement.
But the Mist-Clearing Sword did not cut his hide. It barely scratched it.
“…?”
Was the hide of Gwiinrang—no, a werewolf wielding half of Gwiinrang’s power—really this hard?
The instant the question formed, Yun Jeongseop’s rear leg slammed into my abdomen, and I went tumbling across the dirt in disgrace.
“Hup!”
I forced myself upright in an ugly posture and glared at him.
No matter that the Mist-Clearing Sword was made of a dark-aspected specialized metal, it was still a blade forged by a dwarf master smith.
It made no sense that it could not cut a monster’s hide.
“Do not tell me it is that damned intervention rate again…”
A devoted reader’s spite.
There was no other explanation.
“So there is no way to win through a simple fight.”
Before I could even dwell on the bitterness, Yun Jeongseop began charging at me again.
“Hah. Damn it.”
If not this, then how was I supposed to bring him down?
If only I could do something about that full moon amplifying Yun Jeongseop’s mana, I could at least try Bind…
Like some comic book, perhaps I could destroy the moon.
“……”
Wait.
As a thought flashed through my mind, I shoved the Mist-Clearing Sword into my inventory and used Stealth to evade Yun Jeongseop’s onrush.
Then I immediately draped myself in the Cloak of the Alluring Hermit and tilted a mana potion into my mouth as I widened the distance between us.
I watched Yun Jeongseop wander, searching restlessly for me, and when I judged the moment was right, I canceled Stealth.
“Grr?”
Yun Jeongseop showed a flicker of caution at my Phantom Thief guise, but then he charged at me with the same unremarkable ferocity as before.
Thirty large strides.
Twenty-five, twenty, fifteen…
And as he closed to within fewer than five strides, a massive shadow fell across the ground.
A huge rectangular cloud, riding the strong wind, had covered the moon.
I bound Yun Jeongseop without hesitation.
I restricted his mana along with it, but rather than losing consciousness, Yun Jeongseop simply kept growling as if offended.
“Grrr…!”
Considering that when Hunter Bruno—one of this world’s powerful figures—had restricted mana, the target had lost consciousness quickly, it was easy to infer just how monstrously strong the werewolf before me was.
Of course, I could already feel it from the mana evaporating in real time.
“Just fall already!”
My mind began to blur.
My vision grew hazy as if fog had filled it, and I reached a point where I could not even tell whether my mana was draining out or flowing in.
It was the symptom of mana depletion I had felt when I bound Park Oseok at the entrance ceremony.
“Ghk!”
Should I release Bind and run back toward the lodges?
Would the protagonist, Lee Eunho, handle it somehow?
Even if the hide could not be cut by a Platium sword, would lightning make short work of it?
Countless thoughts flashed like a spinning lantern…
But as if mocking that indecision, Yun Jeongseop finally lost consciousness and collapsed before me.
Not the hide of a beast, but a human form.
My crude plan had worked.
I tried to step forward toward him, but my legs would not obey.
“…?”
Was Bind still active?
If Yun Jeongseop was down, it should have already been released.
When I tried to force movement, I collapsed into the dirt as well, filthy and helpless.
…Mana depletion.
The full moon had already torn through the cloud bank and silently illuminated the earth again.
I stared at that eerie moonlight as if intoxicated, and then, at some point, I lost consciousness without resistance.
[The episode has been completed.]
[1,003 Remake Coins have been awarded.]
[Additional compensation has been granted for episode variation.]
[2,348 Remake Coins have been awarded.]
[You have subdued a being possessing powerful mana.]
[Intelligence increased by 0.2.]
[Magic Power increased by 0.3.]