Chapter 30

It seemed like as soon as they failed to find anything in the heavens and the earth, they decided to head back down.

It wasn’t my concern, so I started to descend ahead of them, but before I knew it, they were hastily following behind me.

“… Is this okay?”

The issue was that my teammates were following me instead of Woo Jang-hoon.

Woo Jang-hoon was trailing far behind, quietly and detachedly.

“Of course~”

Before I knew it, a female hero who appeared to be support class had drawn close to me.

Her familiar face was one I had seen a few times on TV.

She had a pretty face and an energetic vibe.

Her name… I couldn’t recall it.

“We almost died because of someone back there…”

She glanced behind her and glared at Woo Jang-hoon.

Her gaze was brimming with outright anger and dissatisfaction.

“By the way, are you a student somewhere? Gaon? Or maybe Realm?”

“Gaon.”

At my response, her eyes sparkled.

“I’m from Gaon too! Can we drop the formalities?”

She grinned and continued jokingly.

“Sure.”

“Thanks! Anyway, how did you manage to climb that high? There were so many monsters, and two days ago, it wasn’t this impressive… I mean, it wasn’t at all like this…”

She looked at me curiously and kept talking.

Apparently, honorifics were her inhibition.

The descent was much smoother than expected.

The monsters were barely seen. If they showed up occasionally, they were all weak and non-threatening.

Before we knew it, we had descended to the foot of the mountain.

There, a large crowd had already gathered.

Reporters from broadcasting companies, guild members, and Hero Association agents had all gathered to investigate the strange phenomena that occurred at Mount Baekdu.

In the noisy scene, dozens of camera flashes went off, and reporters urgently shoved their microphones forward.

“Did you find any fragments?”

“What are your thoughts about this situation?”

Questions were hurled at them.

Their attention was focused entirely on the Lotus team.

Thanks to that, I was naturally able to slip away through the crowd.

I had come down with them for exactly this reason.

If a young student had come down alone, it would’ve drawn attention.

However, if I was with the Lotus team, the attention would naturally be drawn to them.

“Thanks.”

Taking advantage of that, I quietly hid myself and made my way toward the terminal.

In the midst of this, a familiar face caught my eye.

“Kim Gil-kyu?”

He was the association agent who had picked me up during the negotiation for Iano’s tomb.

He noticed me, momentarily looked stunned, and then quickly reached out.

“Mr. Jung Hae-in…!”

But just then,

The crowd surged forward, pushing him back.

He tried to grab me but only ended up slashing the air.

The distance between us widened instantly.

I quickly hid myself within the crowd.

Unsurprisingly, the association agent had a good sense.

I waved at him as he moved further away and smiled.

Then, I silently mouthed the words.

“I’m leaving.”

I didn’t plan on being caught at the moment.

I arrived at Mount Baekdu on Saturday and popped out on Monday.

It felt like the time axis had been severely twisted.

And predictably, I had skipped school today.

I was living the life of an incredibly diligent student.

So, the place I was heading to was not school.

“There are a lot of people.”

This was Yoido. Just like in reality, people overflowed here in this world as well.

The towering skyscrapers filled the streets, and the hanging signs of various guilds were everywhere.

The only difference was in the center.

There stood a towering penthouse on a plot of land that was clearly on a different level.

And I am currently standing in front of it.

I extended my hand to press the doorbell at the massive gate.

However, there was no need.

The massive iron gate emitted low vibrations and opened automatically.

It seemed like the internal detection system had already recognized me.

As I passed the entrance, a spacious garden came into view.

Neatly arranged walkways, a fountain,

and to one side, a small pond and a pavilion.

Beyond the building, it was a tranquil and quiet space, unimaginable in the center of the city.

A space reflecting the old man’s tastes.

The main building still required a walk through the garden.

I was about to quietly move forward,

when I noticed a silhouette comfortably lying on a sunbed in the yard.

“Yuck.”

I tried to quietly head toward the building without waking her…

“Jung Hae-in?”

Her senses were sharp as ever.

I stopped my steps with a subtle expression.

She lifted her sunglasses slightly, looked at me, and then said with joy,

“Haein! How long has it been since we entered school~? Did you skip school today?”

A familiar scent of perfume wafted towards me.

Her name was Seong Ara.

She was a member of the Vanguisher.

I slipped out of her embrace as quickly as possible and spoke about my purpose.

“Is anyone inside?”

Seong Ara playfully tapped my shoulder, smiled broadly, and placed her finger on her lips.

“Hmm… Park Kwang-cheol and… only me for now.”

The people I needed most were the old man and Park Kwang-cheol.

“Park Kwang-cheol is here.”

“Old Man? He’s been taken for a car by the association for a bit. It’s probably because of Mount Baekdu today? He should be back soon, I think.”

It seemed better to wait.

“Thank you. I’ll go inside.”

“Come with me.”

I opened the entrance of the penthouse with Seong Ara.

It was quite noisy inside.

“Ah… Shit… Hey, Seong Ara, did you mess with my drone again?”

From the opposite side of the entrance, an angry voice came.

It was Park Kwang-cheol.

He was holding a drone while coming out of the living room and saw me passing through the entrance at that moment.

His movements suddenly stopped.

His eyes widened.

He stared at me for a long while.

Under normal circumstances, he would have already greeted me with a smile and started making jokes.

But he didn’t say a word.

It was strange, unnervingly quiet.

“Who… are you?”

At his following words, I furrowed my brows.

“Did you forget to take your medicine?”

Seong Ara next to me looked at Park Kwang-cheol as if he were absurd.

But he continued to stare at me, pressing his temples and frowning.

After a moment of thought, he quietly spoke up.

“… It’s really Hae-in.”

His eyes sharpened.

“Hey, man. What have you been doing?”

He seemed to have noticed the changes in my body.

So I spoke candidly.

Because I could trust them.

“I think I absorbed a fragment.”

At my words, their eyes widened.

“What…?”

The air turned cold and tense.

I finished the body check through the machine Park Kwang-cheol made.

The result was that there were no issues with my body.

And to confirm anything else, I stood in the center of the underground combat training room.

The giant training dummy right in front of me.

It was a dummy I personally used as a benchmark.

“Really doing this, Haein?”

Basically, because it contained a core of the ‘Dark’ attribute, it’s hard to deal significant damage with normal attacks.

If Seong Si-woo absorbs a fragment in the future and destroys this dummy, it would be the proof that he has completely absorbed the fragment.

I decided to personally verify this standard with my own body.

“Difficulty level 7, activating Acid Ripper.”

Across the training ground, behind the reinforced glass, Seong Ara and Park Kwang-cheol were watching me.

Their eyes were filled with worry and tension.

The difficulty of the training dummy was set to level 7.

This was powerful enough that it would require about two active heroes ranked at level 5 to take down.

Considering the average rank of Gaon graduates was around level 4, this was quite a strong opponent indeed.

I intentionally set the difficulty higher than usual.

I was stronger than Seong Si-woo, but more importantly, I wanted to confirm whether the fragment had been completely absorbed into my body.

“3, 2, 1”

“Start.”

The strange silhouette of the dummy moved abruptly.

And—

“Keeeee!”

The dummy screamed as it lunged toward me.

Instant expansion of vision.

My intuition, now evolved into ‘Oneness Perception,’ more precisely read the battlefield.

I dodged.

My whole body reacted automatically.

Its attack was quite fast—normally, I would’ve been hit by it.

“Swoosh!”

I immediately approached it and swung the spear.

However, the dummy twisted its body and dodged my attack.

In that brief moment, the tip of my spear slightly grazed its body.

“Chiiiik”

The ‘Dark’ attribute core of the dummy was subtly eroded.

This meant that the fragment’s dissolving energy was perfectly integrated into my body.

“The check is over.”

I immediately kicked off and ascended into the air.

Full power spear throw.

It was my most confident technique.

The moment I got into position to throw the spear—

“…?”

Suddenly,

A mysterious unknown impulse arose in my mind.

I reflexively adjusted my posture in mid-air.

“Hey, what are you doing!”

I heard Park Kwang-cheol’s shout.

Nevertheless, I was already driving forward, squeezing my mana.

“This is… .”

A technique I could absolutely not use.

Catenaccio.

My body was now trying to execute

the hardest spear technique from the original work.

My heart raced. For some unknown reason,

“I can do this.”

Strangely enough, I was certain.

I released all my mana.

And with that, I weaved my clones.

The number was still insufficient.

Creating them mid-air, I could only make three of them.

But this was enough.

No instruction, no command was needed.

What I intended to do, what I aimed at,

I already knew.

Together with the clones created, I charged all-out at the dummy.

A single spear.

And three magical spears,

simultaneously pierced through it.

“Boom!”

The dummy fell.

“Haa… haa…”

I caught my breath, slowly raising my hand to look at my palm.

My heart was still pounding fiercely.

“The test…”

was successful.

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