< Chapter 134: Progress (1) >
That night.
I was revisiting everything that happened up until now and reestablishing the tasks I need to undertake going forward.
“Two out of the seven executives are dead, and two are allies.”
The remaining executives are only Maestro, Trickster, and Saint.
“Their forces have significantly weakened.”
Simple calculations indicate that reducing from seven to three means their forces have reduced by over 50%. On the contrary, our forces have more than doubled.
Hermit and Lust joined our ranks, and Jia awakened, growing to become a powerful individual who could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them.
“Adding Ms. Maiden’s financial and technological resources would…”
The actual increase in force could skyrocket to 3 to 4 times. While holding my chin with one hand, I scribbled in the notebook with the other.
[What would be our chances of winning if we clash with them in this state?]
Thud, thud, thud.
The rhythmic sound of the pen tapping on the notebook resonated.
[Trickster]
His trait of high unpredictability would be very tricky, but it’s not something we can’t handle.
[Saint]
A trait of psychological manipulation that works in every battle, and a revival ability close to immortality. A tricky opponent, but not unbeatable.
[Maestro]
The most powerful executive with a trait nearly omnipotent, fitting to the name “conductor.” Without clear weaknesses and being smart, he would be the most difficult to deal with. But it’s not without a solution.
For ordinary villains, we have many ways to counter.
Just considering the calculations up until this point, our winning rate would exceed 80%.
However, the most critical variable is missing in this equation.
“…Unknown.”
Unknown is the problem.
With our current power, we absolutely cannot beat him.
If we are pieces on a chessboard, then Unknown is the player outside the board.
A different dimension of strength.
Even if all seven executives attacked at once, they wouldn’t be able to win. Even if nine top rankers, including ‘Master,’ were to all rush in, they wouldn’t be able to inflict a single wound.
Unknown is such an entity.
If Unknown survives and enters the second part of the novel, becoming transcendent, wouldn’t he be as strong as the second part’s boss, the Demon God?
“The fact that he pushed back the super king god supreme martial artist Kang Seo-yul in a 1:1 battle from the original series says it all…”
The last battle of the original Unknown was literally dominant. I don’t know how many times I got chills reading it. When I recall the time I ran into him by chance last time, I got goosebumps involuntarily.
To defeat him, we have to become at least as strong as Kang Seo-yul from the original series. No matter how much I think about it, it seems impossible.
“Is a fast-paced full-scale war really too much?”
I wanted to quickly deal with Unknown and have some time to spare.
It seems it was a greedy thought.
“There’s no helping it.”
It seems like we have no choice but to go with the strategy of quietly preparing for national war terrorism while setting traps, just as initially planned.
“Let’s just sleep.”
I got up from the desk and jumped into bed. I immediately felt a wave of fatigue at the moderately soft sensation unique to a luxury bed.
Gradually, my consciousness faded away.
* * *
The savior of truth’s hiding place.
“I’m sorry. It’s my mistake.”
Maestro was kneeling in front of Unknown.
“….”
Unknown was sitting on a chair with crossed legs, holding his chin and looking down at Maestro.
“Explain.”
No emotion could be felt in his eyes.
“Explain what happened. Everything without any omission.”
At that cold voice, cold sweat ran down the spines of the other executives who were holding their breath in the conference room, including Maestro.
“David. Didn’t you hear me?”
Koo-goo-goo-gooong!
With the rage of Unknown, the power released shook the building, unfolding a scene as if an earthquake had occurred.
“There won’t be a third time. Tell me what happened while I was putting effort into the fusion of the relics. Say everything without any omission.”
“Yes, yes!”
Maestro knelt on one knee and only lifted his head.
“First, using the event of the Korean Superhuman Academy, we plotted the invasion route.”
Maestro explained every single detail of this plan from beginning to end. As the story continued, the expression on Unknown’s face gradually relaxed.
“Someone ignored my traits and isolated the space, killing the Alchemist.”
“So the plan to kidnap Yu Hwa failed?”
“Yes.”
Now it had changed to an expression clearly showing interest.
“Interesting. Continue.”
“Yes. At the time when the Alchemist was isolated in another space, from the other side….”
That was when.
Bang!
The door opened.
“I’ll tell you the rest myself.”
It was Saint, wearing the same smile as always.
“Lora. You’ve finally resurrected.”
“Yes. It took a while because I wasn’t properly prepared.”
Saint’s ability, [To resurrect amidst the dead], requires preparation of sacrifices in advance.
If she had died within her territory, she would have been resurrected in just one second, but unfortunately, there weren’t many prepared sacrifices in Korea.
Due to this, it took as much as three days to resurrect.
“I also had quite a hard time with that woman, which added to the delay in resurrection.”
Saint’s smile deepened.
She recalled the time she fought with Shin Jia.
Who would have known that the woman, who had been shivering like a wounded herbivore, would change so dramatically?
“Alright, Lora. Tell us. What happened?”
“Actually, there’s not much to say. My ability didn’t work, so I took aggressive actions to capture her and was defeated. That’s the end of it.”
“You lost to a cadet?”
“Yes. She wasn’t an ordinary cadet.”
Saint grinned.
“During the fight, she suddenly transformed into something like an elf.”
“An elf?”
Unknown’s expression turned serious.
He glanced at Lust stealthily. Lust was also frowning about something.
“That awakened Shin Jia defeated me, and here we are.”
Saint smiled brightly.
“…”
Silence flowed.
During that silence, Lust and Hermit made eye contact.
Lust sent a message to Hermit with his eyes.
He blinked three times with a 0.3-second interval between each blink.
‘Come to that place later.’
That was the signal.
Hermit nodded his head very slightly.
“Boss, didn’t you look for the elves? If so, then for Shin Jia …”
“No.”
Unknown shook his head with a small smile.
“Shin Jia is not an elf.”
“But what Saint and I saw was …”
“I will not say it a second time.”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
Maestro erased the doubts at Unknown’s assertion. Unknown’s words were the truth. There must be a reason why he was so sure.
“Ah, nice.”
Unknown called out to Lust.
“Nice? What is?”
“It seems like you made a friend.”
“…”
Lust had a subtle expression.
Unknown’s eyes shone.
‘Probably that cadet named Shin Jia awakened to [Transcendent Lineage] just like this kid.’
Then there was no particular need to see it.
They had already learned everything about the system of someone possessing Transcendent Lineage through Lust.
It wasn’t much different from humans.
‘And only the real elves know about the ten thousand years of the void.’
The reason Unknown became enthusiastic about searching for different species was because he wanted to know about the ‘ten thousand years of the void’ that they might know.
He had no interest in a cadet who had only partly acquired the power of an elf through Transcendent Lineage.
“David. Return to your position.”
“…Yes.”
Maestro stood up from his seat, gave a small salute, and returned to his place.
“I heard everything well. I understand that it was a situation with many variables. I also understand that it was a situation where nothing could be done with David’s abilities.”
Maestro’s expression twisted. His pride was hurt by the phrase ‘a situation where nothing could be done with David’s abilities’. It seemed to imply that someone else could have handled it better.
“I also understand that Blannew died. It’s just because Blannew was weak, he died.”
It was the same as during the Vagabond time.
Death was solely due to one’s own mistake.
The alchemist, who was defeated even while possessing the potion of time regression, was just foolish.
His death was no one’s fault.
Unknown sincerely thought so.
“So, David, did you gain anything from this operation?”
Unknown’s expression coldly hardened.
“It was a grand operation where I delegated full authority to you, involving as many as four busy executives.”
He glared, filled with the will to tear Maestro apart right here and now.
“Whether successful or not, it won’t be that you gained nothing.”
Maestro’s lips trembled minutely. He felt like a mouse standing before a tiger.
“Answer me, David.”
Unknown glared at Maestro, raising two fingers.
Those fingers were telling Maestro this:
‘There isn’t a third time.’
Maestro snapped back to reality right away. It wasn’t the time to shrink back from Unknown’s momentum.
“We learned that the mastermind who trapped Vagabond in the trap wasn’t Yu Hwa or Maiden Critines.”
If they had been the masterminds, they wouldn’t have fallen for it so easily with the alchemist.
“Then who is it? If you’re thinking of mentioning Shin Jia…”
Shin Jia’s awakening was just a result of the special awakening from the expression of rage triggered by Saint’s provocation.
It was a fact that Unknown could be certain of, somewhat knowing about Transcendent Lineage.
“No.”
Although Maestro was unaware of the Transcendent Lineage, he felt that it wasn’t that by intuition.
“Then who is it?”
“….”
Maestro lost his words.
No, he had nothing to say.
Even Maestro hadn’t yet identified who the mastermind was.
“David.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know, not yet atleast….”
Unknown’s expression became cold as a stern winter.
“However! There is one thing that has become certain!”
Facing Unknown, who was maintaining a rigid expression, Maestro shouted urgently.
“There is a traitor among these five people.”
“…What’s your basis?”
Interest sprang up again on Unknown’s face.
“It’s the time it took for the alchemist to disappear. The alchemist’s ability is specialized for battle against individuals. With the potion of time regression that makes him invincible for 5 minutes, he couldn’t have been killed easily.”
“….”
“That alchemist died in just 3 minutes. This would be impossible unless someone provided information about the alchemist to the unknown mastermind X.”
It was a reasonable suspicion.
Even if Unknown himself had fought with the alchemist without knowing about him, he would not have been able to take down the alchemist within 3 minutes.
The alchemist’s ‘potion of time regression’ was that exceptional.
Reading the interest in Unknown’s expression, Maestro opened his mouth to drive the last nail in.
“And I have identified who that traitor is.”
“Oh.”
A glint of interest flowed in Unknown’s eyes.
“Indeed. If we can remove the cancerous cell within, the delay of the plan and Blannew’s death are not significant issues.”
Unknown said, sweeping his eyes over the remaining five executives.
“So, who is the traitor?”
A chilling silence descended.
Everyone was watching each other, waiting for Maestro’s words.
“The traitor is….”
Maestro slowly raised his hand.
“Hermit.”
That hand was pointing straight at Hermit.
* * *
Thursday.
A week has passed since the incident.
“Really, is this year cursed or something?”
“How many times have we had school off now?”
The academy was closed yesterday.
The damage to the premises wasn’t that severe, but because the incident was so big, it took a long time to deal with it.
“It’s a relief that no one from our class died.”
“In the first place, they said the damage to the student officers themselves wasn’t that great.”
Because there were so many superhumans present at the time of the incident, aside from the initial explosion, there were almost no civilian or student officer casualties.
Of course, that meant many superhumans died instead.
“Guys! We have self-study again today!”
A male student shouted as he entered the classroom.
“…Ah, come on.”
“Did we come all the way to the academy just for self-study?”
Everyone looked apprehensive.
“I don’t know. Let’s just go to the training ground.”
“Right. I’ve been at home so long, that I feel all stifled, I want to stretch my body a bit. 1:1, deal?”
“Deal.”
The cadets gathered in small groups here and there and left to do their individual training.
“Seo-yul-ah!”
Si-yeon and Jia approached me.
“Let’s train together!”
“Why not? I’m up for it.”
It was just the time I was planning to experiment with “Dragon Eye”. Si-yeon is just the right person to be an experimental partner.
“Kang Seo-yul.”
Suddenly, Choi Ji-hoon approached me.
“Bring it on. Today is the day I will make you taste the bitterness of defeat.”
No, an obsessed guy came over.
“The goddess of victory doesn’t smile at the same person 32 times…”
“… will make you realize.”
I exactly reproduced Choi Ji-hoon’s words that I had heard several times. Choi Ji-hoon was taken aback.
He’s really something.
He wants to beat me that badly.
Well, that must be why he trained so hard.
“Alright. Let’s do it, a duel. But we’ll do it in a single round…”
On second thought, Choi Ji-hoon is a better fit to experiment with “Dragon Eye.”
“The loser has to call the winner ‘Hyung’. Deal?”
Plus, this will be a chance to show that arrogant guy a harsh lesson.
“…Alright.”
Choi Ji-hoon nodded with a serious expression.
It shows a determination that he absolutely cannot lose. Does he dislike calling me “Hyung” that much?
“Okay. Then let’s go straight to the training ground. I need to reserve a place…”
“I already did.”
“…Well prepared, aren’t you? Then let’s go.”
He’s thoroughly prepared.
“Go ahead first. The location is here. I will go after having a short talk with Kim Chul-jin.”
“…Oh, planning a strategy?”
“….”
“Well, do as you wish. Then we’ll go first. Let’s go, Jia, Si-yeon.”
“Ah, yes.”
“Yes.”
I waved my hand moderately and exited the classroom.
“Um, Seo-yul.”
At a sparsely populated crossroad, Si-yeon called me.
“What’s up?”
“That, are you still around C rank?”
“Magic is only B. My rank increased by one because I was paired with you.”
The ‘sympathy’, a trait of the Succubus race, was used before.
“Ah. Right.”
Ha Si-yeon stuck out her tongue and smiled.
“Anyway, it’s an average of C rank, right?”
“If we have to be precise? Why?”
“…Then it might be hard to beat Ji-hoon.”
Si-yeon’s expression was quite serious.
“Ji-hoon, his magical armor evolved.”
“…What?”
“I don’t know the name because he didn’t tell me, but anyway, its form changed, and it evolved to a stronger level. To the point that even I can’t penetrate it.”
“…Even you, Si-yeon?”
“I probably couldn’t have won without using the Ice Empress.”
…Wow. Is it that serious?
What’s up with Choi Ji-hoon all of a sudden?
Did he do some illegal doping or something?
I was surprised by the abruptness of the arena, what on earth did he evolve his magical armor into in just a week?
“His resistance to magic has also become much stronger… with your current ability, it would be hard to win. Unless you can use Cheonbyeon, but with training equipment….”
“Hmm.”
She isn’t wrong.
If it is true that Choi Ji-hoon evolved his magical armor, it means it is a strength that someone with a C-rank can not penetrate.
As Si-yeon said, it might be possible if Cheonbyeon could be used, but there’s no way with training weapons.
Even if I pour all the magic with B-rank magic power, it would run out to just make a mark.
That must be why Si-yeon is saying such a thing.
“It’s fine.”
“…Huh?”
But that is an unnecessary worry.
“It’s fine.”
I looked straight into Si-yeon’s eyes and smiled faintly.
“The magical armor is just ‘a phenomenon caused by the operation of magical power,’ right?”
“…Yeah?”
“Then I’ll win.”
I wickedly smiled inwardly.
What should I do, I feel sorry for this.
“Si-yeon, I’ll show you something amazing today.”
Now.
Choi Ji-hoon.
Quietly become the sacrifice for my ‘Dragon Eye’.
< Chapter 134: Progress (1) > End
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