156 – The Nymphs and the Demon King’s Hero! #6
“Even with me, Morales, helping, you failed to catch Haildo…! Demon King Jun, this useless fool is worse than a paper straw that can’t be recycled…! Once this is over, I will change my loyal servant…! Demon King Jun, you are finished…!”
The muddy Nymph Morales frowned and expressed her anger vehemently.
Demon King Jun, extremely irritated, treated his face with ice that his subordinates had brought and shouted at the surroundings.
“Stop Haildo from escaping the island! You idiots! Hurry!”
“T-That’s because that guy is too strong─.”
“Are you kidding me!? You can’t stop just one idiot who barely became A Rank? You useless fools! You’re all dead meat! Dead meat! You useless bastards!”
Booming sounds echoed.
As Demon King Jun shouted, rings on his hands glowed brightly.
Demon King Jun then headed to his secret office to pack up.
“Damn it, I’m escaping this island! I’ll be going underground for a while!”
As Morales had anticipated, Haildo was clearly here on the island as a government spy or a corresponding public service entity.
If he remained as is, a strike team backed by public opinion would storm this paradise.
Then, Demon King Jun would be hunted down.
“I was so close! Damn it! Not yet, it’s not possible. Not yet—.”
It was true that Demon King Jun had roped in and absorbed influential figures in politics and business, but he was still not at a level to fight against an enormous entity called the ‘nation.’
So, Demon King Jun chose to escape and hide for the time being.
He would escape while his subordinates distracted attention.
“I’m a bit regretful about what I’ve achieved so far, but it’s okay. If I have this coin! This Whispering Coin! Morales! Have you been collecting coins properly all this time? Huh?”
Swish—.
Demon King Jun, clutching the “Whispering Coin” from his pocket.
As the muddy Nymph Morales daily demanded many annoying requests from him, she generously rewarded him with this “Whispering Coin” as payment—.
And that was what made Demon King Jun who he was today.
Therefore, if he could obtain more of this coin, Demon King Jun could bounce back at any time.
“Muhuh, I’ve been collecting coins diligently…!”
Morales dug around to find the coins she had carefully hidden under the wall.
But—
She felt something strange.
The earth that had been buried under the wall was all dug up, and the coins were gone!
“Guah…! All the coins have been stolen…! This coin of Morales, hidden in this wall without anyone knowing, has completely vanished…! It must be the work of those Nymph sisters…!”
Guah—
That was said to be the scream one utters when experiencing a shock that inflicts severe damage to their soul.
Morales screamed, Guah, and seeing her, Demon King Jun frowned.
“What—!? It must be that Haildo…! That guy must have sent the Nymphs to retrieve my coins…!”
“It’s not your coins; it’s this Morales’ coin!”
Demon King Jun felt his blood run cold and hot in turn.
But, being a man who had been through countless holding cells and hells since he was 16, he assessed the situation coldly.
“Seems like that idiot Haildo doesn’t even know how to use the coins, right? Perhaps this is an opportunity. A crisis often leads to a greater chance! Just like that day when I seized my opportunity after being rejected by Lee Sun-A!”
Demon King Jun resolved to seize the coins that Haildo’s Nymphs may have collected to grow even stronger.
At this point, it would be better to confront Haildo.
“I won’t lose to a washed-up newly A Rank loser! I’ll defeat that guy quickly, take everything he has, and then I’ll leave for Korea by boat!”
Booming—
The colorful rings on Demon King Jun’s fingers shone even more ominously.
“I’ll take care of the Nymph sisters, so Demon King Jun, don’t make another stupid mistake…! If you do, I’ll beat you up…!”
Morales frowned and expressed her frustration.
Demon King Jun tried to exercise as much patience as he could while looking at Morales.
“I need this guy to gather and use more coins. If I fight Morales now, all the humiliation and shame I’ve endured will be for nothing.”
Morales and Demon King Jun were not good partners.
In Demon King Jun’s eyes, Haildo’s friendliness with the Nymphs was strangely odd.
“Aren’t all the Nymphs like that annoying and irritating Morales? If they aren’t, maybe abandoning Morales and seizing Haildo’s Nymphs could be a good method!”
However, he was worried that Haildo might have escaped the island with the Nymphs.
Demon King Jun examined the surveillance screens he had installed throughout the island and spotted Haildo and Lee Jin-A evacuating people on the beach.
“Are you pretending to be a good person even in this situation? What a terrible guy! That idiotic mindset will strangle you and take everything away!”
Pah!
Demon King Jun ran toward the beach.
# # #
“I’ve managed to evacuate most of the people! It seems Yu Ara safely escaped the island too!”
Lee Jin-A said.
It was a moment of relief, knowing that the variables that could occur in the future had diminished.
I then shouted to the sky to find Demon King Jun.
“Kalilnoi! Do you see anything…!?”
Kalilnoi, flying in the sky, was as capable of detection as the latest reconnaissance aircraft. While owls usually have poor daytime vision, it seemed that Bonbon Kalilnoi didn’t have that problem.
“Hoo, hoo…!”
At that moment, Kalilnoi cried out in a concerning voice.
As it turned to fly in a different direction, I also headed that way and saw Demon King Jun leading a unit wearing helmets and tactical gear.
They looked like more than simple organized thugs; they seemed like some national strike unit and appeared to be fairly competent.
As they surrounded us, Demon King Jun said,
“Haildo, I’ll ask you first. Let’s trade. If you and I join hands, we can conquer not just this island, but greater lands as well! We could aim for Korea and even the world!”
Clank-clang—
Demon King Jun had made a good suggestion, yet the members around him were busy reloading their guns.
They appeared to be Awakened at D Rank, F Rank, and E Rank, and while each might not be impressive individually, in such numbers, they posed a significant threat.
“Come on, Haildo. Take my hand. You know how annoying it is to follow rules and uphold morality! If you aim for the top, you must do anything required!”
Truly a critical situation, but Lee Jin-A suddenly put her finger to her temple and shouted.
“I’ll take care of the punks! Haildo, you focus on Demon King Jun!”
Lee Jin-A seemed to be planning something.
It was in a tone filled with such certainty that I wondered what means she intended to use.
“Why are you staring like that?”
“Did you just curse at me?!”
Thud, Crack—!
The thugs with guns began swinging their gunstocks at each other or throwing punches.
“Why are you guys doing this!? Why are you fighting each other right now!?”
“Shut up!”
In an instant, chaos erupted.
I could tell that Lee Jin-A had done something.
Did she control the emotions of several people at once?
Her ability seemed to have improved since the time she barely managed to deal with the Troll King.
Demon King Jun quickly grasped the situation as well.
“To control others’ emotions, that’s a good ability. This impulsive and reckless nature is characteristic of Lee Sun-A’s younger sister. But if there’s a weakness—.”
Swish—
Demon King Jun raised his right index finger.
Booming—
A fluorescent ring emitted light.
Suddenly, the guns dropped by the thugs floated into the air.
“Direct attacks can be the weakness of a mental manipulation ability user, right?”
That Demon King Jun.
It looked like he was planning to directly attack Jin-A to resolve the situation, just as I had caught him off guard once!
He didn’t seem to have reached A Rank just for show!
“Bang Bang, Meow, it’s your turn!”
—Hiooong…!
—Miooong…!
Two spiders that had hidden on the island landed on my shoulders.
They began to sing, Hiooong, Miooong— while Bang Bang even jingled a small instrument made of its own web with its forelegs.
“What the hell are you doing?”
According to Ari, Demon King Jun was sly like a weasel and cowardly.
He seemed to be on edge, wary of the harmony sung by Meow and Bang Bang sitting on my shoulders.
Booming—
He didn’t forget to wrap a psychokinetic shield around himself.
“Psychokinesis is a delicate force. It’s said that only those with sensitive sensory organs can become psychokinetics because it manipulates unseen hands.”
It was common knowledge that psychokinetics tend to have prickly and sensitive personalities, more accurate than any MBTI personality test that had once been popular.
They seemed to always need to be on alert to handle the invisible sixth sense.
In other words—
Psychokinetics are characterized by having heightened sensations.
—Hiooong…!
—Miooong…!
Amidst it all, the dance, song, and instrumental performance of the spiders with a total of 16 legs must have penetrated through their delicate nerves like some kind of enchantment.
That was my A Rank magical power strengthening the spiders’ secret move.
“This is the ‘Illusion – Spider Chorus.’ Those who are affected by this technique have their synesthetic perception impaired, making it difficult to use delicate and sensitive techniques. Just my hypothesis—.”
Thud-thud—
The guns that had floated up fell to the ground.
It seemed that Demon King Jun’s psychokinetic powers were unstable.
“The effects seem certain.”
“Haildo, you bastard—.”
If it had been Lee Joon-Hun at S Rank back then, he would have been capable of finely adjusting the coordinates even with such an attack, but Demon King Jun wasn’t able to do so.
“Demon King Jun, you have a lot of abilities, but it seems your mastery of them isn’t that great? Even if you fell to the same A Rank as me, you wouldn’t have been affected by such a distraction.”
That was quite natural.
Awakened individuals typically focused on honing and polishing one talent.
That in itself is a challenging endeavor.
Moreover, mastering multiple abilities simultaneously to a master level would require even more time and effort.
However, in my eyes, Demon King Jun was not that type of person.
He scoffed at honest effort and perseverance, opting for shortcuts and illegal means.
Training.
Effort.
Did he even go through such boring and hard processes?
“All those various abilities you wield are probably tricks, right? It’s likely due to those rings? They glow every time you use your powers, you item-using bastard!”
Demon King Jun, caught off guard by my criticism, snapped.
“That bastard, while fighting using animal powers, dares to lecture me—! Haildo, that irritating punk…! I’ve hated you since the first time we met…!”
Pah—
Demon King Jun clenched his fists tightly.
“I’ll show you why this island is called ‘Hell Island’!”
