Chapter 110 : Chapter 110
Chapter 110
Monica, who had said we would meet later in Seoul, vanished without a sound.
Now that she had money in hand, she was probably planning to roam the outskirts of Seoul and indulge in nightlife.
Still, she disappeared only after finishing everything she had to do.
She contacted Special Affairs Division Chief Baek Dojun and, following procedure, ensured compensation was paid to the residents of Geumgorae Village.
She requested Dispel to have the gumiho’s mana stone and corpse assigned to the Special Affairs Division, and to conduct another sweep of the area where the incident had occurred.
And she pinned the entirety of this achievement neatly onto me.
“Investigator! Is it true that you freed the residents who were being controlled by a monster!”
“Are you planning to suspend your studies and focus on Special Affairs Division work from now on!”
“According to testimony, a gigantic golem was summoned. Is it true that you were moving together with another Special Affairs investigator, the ‘Summoner of Radiance’!”
“Are you aware that many rumors about your background have been circulating lately? Please give us a word on that—!”
Thanks to that, the moment I returned to Seoul, I had to give a case briefing at Dispel’s headquarters and endure a barrage of reporters’ questions.
Fortunately, Special Affairs Division Chief’s attendant, Kim Seyeon, sent me relevant answers by message, so I managed to get through it somehow, but…
“But was it not Kim Seyeon who normally briefed cases handled by Special Affairs?”
All at once, I began to suspect there might be hidden intent behind Baek Dojun’s advice that I should reveal my identity.
It felt as though he was trying to raise my public profile.
Considering the narrative of Baek Dojun as a character, there was a strong chance I had already become a chess piece being used for his purpose.
“Of course, the direction of that purpose aligned with what I wanted, so it was not a major problem.”
In any case, after only a week, I had become a newly risen investigator who exterminated a Demonic Being and saved a village, and under Dispel’s protection, I returned to the 4th Scholastic District.
The moment I stepped into Hero Prep, my mind naturally settled.
For someone like me, with no ties to this world, it had somehow become a kind of emotional hometown.
More than anything, thanks to the cadets leaving for their family homes, the atmosphere on campus was unbelievably pleasant.
Aside from the occasional facilities personnel around the buildings, there was hardly any sign of life at all.
I wanted to enter the dormitory and shake off my weariness in that quiet mood, but unfortunately, the first place I headed the moment I returned to Hero Prep was the outdoor 3rd Training Ground.
Because the promised time with An Hwigom—1 a.m.—was looming.
It had been 6 p.m. when I chased the gumiho in Geumgorae Village.
I handed off the situation at the scene and boarded the train at 10 p.m., and by the time I finished the briefing in Seoul, it was already near midnight.
Deep down, I hoped An Hwigom would have something urgent to do, but as always, he was waiting on the Training Ground.
“You really do run about busily, do you not.”
“You are right. I have been dragged into all sorts of things. Still, it is fortunate I am not late.”
“If you went for an outing outside Seoul, you should have at least returned with a brighter face.”
An Hwigom, of all people, was pointedly criticizing my expression.
As expected, there was no escaping his sharp eye.
In truth, my stomach had been burning over the stock crash.
Wearing an awkward smile, I said,
“I thought I had no greed at all, but now that it happened to me, I feel like my eyes have flipped.”
“I do not know what it is, but I can tell you have been neglecting your training.”
I almost replied, Are we not doing the important training right now, with you? but instead I simply gave up and picked up a practice sword from a nearby rack.
I trudged up onto the Training Ground, but An Hwigom spoke unexpectedly.
“Today, we will not spar.”
“…Pardon?”
“For the current you, any further sparring is meaningless.”
Was that praise?
Whatever it meant, it was a reaction that did not suit An Hwigom at all.
I almost wanted him to treat me like an animal with his usual scathing tongue instead.
“Do not get conceited. We are only suspending sparring for the moment.”
“Suspending it? Then what are we doing?”
In answer, An Hwigom adjusted his grip on his sword and slashed through empty air.
A sharp tearing sound rang out, and mana shaped like the sword’s trajectory brushed past my thigh before vanishing.
“…!”
It happened in the blink of an eye.
Stunned, I looked down at my thigh.
A deep wound had opened in flesh that boasted a Durability stat of 13.3, and my entire leg was already stained red.
Only after seeing the injury did the agony arrive in full.
I lost my balance and collapsed helplessly to the ground.
“Hngh!”
That attack An Hwigom had just shown was unmistakably a sword strike.
Just as one could distinguish a skilled shooter by whether they could fire magic bullets, awakened beings who used swords and spears were judged by whether they could project a strike from their weapon.
Hunters capable of using magic bullets: under three percent.
Hunters capable of projecting strikes: under ten percent.
By percentage alone, magic bullets seemed more prestigious, but it was a statistical trap.
In an era where most awakened beings used firearms, close-range Hunters who could not project strikes were naturally weeded out.
So when one compared absolute numbers, there were several times more awakened beings who used magic bullets.
Among the very top Hunters, there were more who used projected strikes than magic bullets.
And projected strikes took longer to learn than magic bullets.
It was difficult to find a proper master, and beyond physical ability, it demanded significant magical talent as well.
In terms of stats: Intelligence and Magic Power.
People rarely divided projected strikes into “levels,” but the sword strike An Hwigom showed was too fast, too precise, too sharp to gauge with the naked eye.
If he had been aiming for my life, my head would have flown off already without leaving a trace.
……
No, perhaps I would have ended up needing Metalgrid embedded in my thigh.
An Hwigom was a wind-attribute awakened being, and until recently I had carried a -10% wind-attribute penalty.
If the reader had not arbitrarily raised my wind attribute, it would have been lethal damage that would have been difficult to heal.
Though that was only hindsight.
An Hwigom tossed me a healing potion and said,
“What are you dawdling for? Get up at once.”
A tone that could have sounded cold.
But really, was that old man’s crankiness anything new?
As he said, he was the one who had slashed me thousands of times over the semester. As long as he was not truly trying to kill me, all of it was “training.”
I poured the potion over my thigh and forced myself upright.
“So you are going to teach me that technique?”
“It is not a technique. It is a sword strike. If my judgment is correct, it will suit you better than it suits me.”
……
It would suit me?
On what basis?
Whatever the basis, a sword strike was not a particularly good skill for the character Ji Seokhyeon.
Because using a sword strike required revealing one’s attribute.
If it became known that I possessed the darkness attribute on top of already being known for using the Demonic Eye, people would immediately suspect I was of Hyun Yuyeol’s bloodline.
So I was about to politely refuse the training, but An Hwigom opened his mouth as if he had read my thoughts.
“If the attribute troubles you, you need not worry. If you learn sword strikes, it will greatly aid your swordsmanship even if you do not use them directly. …Moreover, I already know you are a darkness-attribute awakened being.”
An Hwigom looked at his black sword.
“When you aimed your sword at me, this one told me.”
The sword told him my attribute?
So it really was that…
The metal used in that black sword was clearly something called “Goldinium.”
It was one grade below Platium, but since it had the setting of absorbing all light, it possessed a trait where its color changed depending on the attribute of the mana that touched it.
Naturally, it was not an easy metal to handle, and because of that trait, it was nearly as rare as Platium.
There were other settings as well, but what puzzled me was how An Hwigom possessed Goldinium in the first place.
In the original work, An Hwigom was nothing more than a mere extra, yet he carried equipment made of a metal scarcely inferior to Platium.
Even if he was deeply connected to Manyeong, it was difficult to accept at face value.
Just what narrative had the reader granted An Hwigom…
“So stop thinking foolish thoughts and fix your grip on the sword.”
“…All right.”
In any case, even after learning my attribute, he had remained consistently cranky.
And he had also pretended not to notice me imitating the Phantom Thief, the worst kind of criminal.
It was still hard to read his intent, but one thing was clear: he was taking me seriously.
Following his instruction, I readjusted my grip.
“The first thing you must do is assimilate the mana within the sword with your own.”
“Do you mean I should pour mana into the sword?”
“Tch. Simply releasing mana is something anyone can do with experience. What I mean is to fully commune with the mana the sword possesses.”
As he said, overlaying one’s mana onto an item one touched was something anyone could do with enough training.
And that was merely a method of reinforcing an item with mana. The moment contact ended, it returned to its original state.
It was an entirely different context from shaping a blade and sending it flying as a projected sword strike.
It was a difficult explanation, but I could vaguely grasp the sensation he meant.
“Commune…”
I closed my eyes at once and attempted to commune with the sword.
Just as I had assimilated with environmental mana.
Just as I had dominated environmental mana.
How long had I kept my eyes closed like that?
At some point, cracks formed along the sword in my hand, and the blade shattered into fragments in an instant.
Was this not how it was done?
To avoid losing the flow, I immediately grabbed a new sword.
But then An Hwigom narrowed his eyes and asked,
“What did you just do?”
“…Pardon?”
“How did you break the sword?”
“I just tried to commune as much as possible. But before I even did anything, it shattered on its own.”
“…Do it again.”
An Hwigom wore a face that seemed doubtful.
I gripped the sword with the same sensation as before, and as expected, it split apart with a sharp sound.
“Is that not how it is done?”
I asked, watching An Hwigom’s reaction, but for some reason he fell silent, lost in thought.
With no choice, I was about to step down from the Training Ground to fetch another sword, when An Hwigom held out his own black sword toward me.
“Try with this.”
“…Pardon?”
“Hurry.”
Since he told me to, I accepted the sword, but the moment it landed in my hands, I almost dropped it to the ground from the weight.
How could he move like that while wielding something this heavy?
I straightened it upright with both hands.
Then, letting my mana flow with the same sensation as before…
“…!”
A strange power seized my entire body, something I had not felt earlier.
It was as if the sword had become my body, or as if I had become the sword.
This was clearly the communion An Hwigom had meant.
A complete communion where each relied upon the other’s mana.
More than that, the light of my mana dyed the blade.
A darkness so deep it could be mistaken for a shadow at a glance.
It was not merely the concept of “overlaying,” something other awakened beings could do.
Beyond that, I could even feel the faint resonance of the blade itself.
In other words, it was as if the metal were alive and breathing.
“With this feeling…”
Drawing the sword strike An Hwigom had shown into my mind, I swung the sword with all my strength.
A tearing sound rang out as if it had been waiting, and a sword strike sliced through the air at a speed no different from a bullet.
The strike flew toward the Training Ground made of massive stone.
The boulder that formed the Training Ground—said to have once been part of the Ancient Golem the Sword Saint had cut down.
The sword strike carved into the edge of the Training Ground, but it failed to sever it completely and lost its force.
At the same time, I let An Hwigom’s sword drop to the ground and panted harshly, drained of mana.
“You…”
An Hwigom was staring at me with an expression I had never seen on him before.
I immediately understood his reaction.
Because that sword strike had been stronger than the one An Hwigom had fired a moment ago.