Episode 035
Lee Se-eun, examining the seal surrounding her, spoke into the radio.
"Guard the train. I'll break this as fast as I can and get out."
"Even if you hurry, you'll be too late."
When she turned her gaze, there stood a man loosely draped in a traditional robe, smiling. He wasn't real—just an apparition.
"Is that so?"
As she spoke, Lee Se-eun gripped her greatsword and drew up her mana. That alone made the surrounding air resonate with her power, emitting a low vibration.
"Judging by what you're wearing, you must be one of those 'Descendants of Dangun' types."
"My name is Lee Ha-yun. You're from the Yangnyeong Daegun line, Ms. Lee Se-eun. Same as me. If we get technical, that makes me your second cousin once removed. Nice to meet you."
"So what."
While speaking, Lee Se-eun swung her greatsword and smashed it into the seal isolating her. The greatsword struck—and exploded completely.
At the same time, the seal let out a shriek and shook violently.
"So crude, as expected."
Cold sweat formed on Lee Ha-yun's forehead. What kind of monster of a woman was this? He had anticipated it, but the gap between expectation and reality was enormous.
She had poured in enough mana to blow up her own weapon, yet Lee Se-eun's total mana reserves didn't seem diminished at all.
"You seem pretty confident in its durability."
When Lee Se-eun extended her hand to the side, the ring on her index finger shone. In the next moment, a greatsword perfectly identical to the one she had just swung appeared in her hand.
"The Mirror Ring."
"So you know it? Well, hardly anyone doesn't."
It was a ring she was known to have obtained after eliminating a Grade-1 Corrupted. It could register a single piece of equipment, and whenever the registered item was destroyed, it would instantly be copied and returned to its owner's hand.
The newly recreated greatsword slammed into the seal and exploded again.
—You can take your time. I'll hold out.
Yoo Chan-seok's voice came through the radio.
"How amusing. What could a nobody like him possibly do?"
Lee Ha-yun spoke in a tone that sounded almost mocking as he heard the transmission. Lee Se-eun replied while smashing the seal again with her greatsword.
"You never know."
"Even if Nikolai is an inferior race, the equipment he possesses is fairly decent."
Lee Se-eun answered coldly.
"Three years ago, the Descendants of Dangun approached me."
"You refused, as I recall. But if you were to change your mind even now, we'd welcome you anytime."
Instead of replying, Lee Se-eun grasped a fresh greatsword to replace the shattered one and answered with a smile.
"Go eat shit, you Nazi bastards."
"That's a bit harsh. We're patriots. Have you ever spent even five minutes a day thinking about your country?"
A quote from Ahn Chang-ho. He surely hadn't meant for it to be used like that. The way they acted was exactly like some cult cherry-picking Bible verses to suit their tastes.
Lee Se-eun scowled as she replied.
"I've got a lot I could say… but I won't."
It was a waste of time. She shut her mouth and focused on destroying the seal with her greatsword.
Lee Se-eun was trapped inside the seal. And inside it, she continued to hammer away relentlessly to escape.
"Hey, at that rate…"
It would probably take about forty minutes to break the seal. And that was how long we'd have to hold out without Lee Se-eun.
From afar, someone flew in trailing flames like a jetpack and landed with a thunderous crash.
"What the hell, some kind of Iron Man?"
A massive figure, its entire body encased in thick steel, aimed a heavy cannon at us. Thanks to the glass-like protective gear, we could see his face.
A shaved head with scratch scars. So that was Nikolai. He matched the photos we'd seen beforehand. He shouted confidently through a loudspeaker.
—Drop all your weapons and surrender, and we might spare your lives!
Who would surrender after hearing that? Might spare us? If you want us not to surrender, you could just say so.
"Still, he's an interesting one."
There wasn't a trace of mana inside his body. The guy inside that steel shell was just an ordinary human. Han Sang-ah, who had drawn her sword, took a steadying breath and spoke.
"About ten years ago, during the Predator Project, a few of those were made. The Korean military tried to put them into service, but they gave up because the required materials were too hard to obtain."
Then how the hell did something like that end up in the hands of some Russian thug boss? Getting equipment like that is one problem—keeping it is another.
Unless the Korean government was quietly letting it slide, the normal outcome would be for it to be seized instantly and the holder executed.
In any case, the steel shell Nikolai was using was powered by mana. Which meant there was something somewhere in that equipment supplying it with mana.
"Let's hope it's not something I shouldn't eat."
Some mana-infused substances are edible, others aren't.
If you compare it to calories: fried chicken has about 2,000 calories per bird, and it's edible.
Uranium has about 80 billion calories per gram, and it's not edible. I mean, you can eat it—but you can't stay alive afterward.
Trying to strengthen your bloodline by ingesting something your body can't handle is like wanting to consume a ton of calories at once and deciding to eat uranium. Pure insanity.
—Now, wipe them out!
What was funny was that all the actual grunts were people who could use mana.
"Soldiers, stay back."
I said that to Han Sang-ah as I charged forward with the other hunters, spear in hand.
"First time fighting people, right?"
"You too."
I gleefully deflected the attack of a guy rushing at me with twin blades, then drove my spear straight through his skull.
The body collapsed with a dull thud, unable even to scream, blood pouring out.
"I'm prepared for this."
Han Sang-ah flinched at the sight. Killing monsters and killing people were as different as butchery and cannibalism.
"If you can't handle it, just go back."
An ally who feels sympathy for the enemy is more of a hindrance than a help. It's better to not have them at all.
"No."
Han Sang-ah answered like that, gripping her sword tightly before charging toward the enemy.
"I can do it."
"Then do it."
I spoke firmly to Han Sang-ah and moved.
The guilt from killing creeps in like a ghost only after everything is over.
You stay extremely on edge, repeatedly dreaming about the moment of your first kill, and you start avoiding certain situations.
And usually, it fades—anywhere from a few days to a month.
"Ha."
People scream. Shouts and curses fly in different languages, each tied to a different country. Weapons clash, guts spill out, and blood runs across the ground.
A murky, violent storm of emotions from a mass of humans crashing together.
It feels strange. I shouldn't want to see things like this anymore—shouldn't be comfortable here.
"This is really disgusting."
Not the situation itself, but the fact that I feel like I've come home just by being here.
—AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
In my sight, I see Nikolai blasting his boosters, charging toward the train where the shield generator is located. He fires the cannon in his hand wildly while swinging a lightsaber forged of mana with the other.
His momentum is vicious, his firepower overwhelming. The Jannabi hunters are desperately trying to stop him, but from the looks of it, they won't hold out much longer.
"Hey, tin can."
The lightsaber coming down toward a hunter's head was blocked by the spear I thrust out. Then the spear in my hand repeatedly extended and retracted, targeting the equipment he was wearing.
He swiftly deflected with his blade and turned his gaze to me.
—Ah, it's you? That Korean rookie everyone talks about.
Characters flashed rapidly across the glass-like visor protecting his face. What, trying to analyze me?
—Huh? You're nothing special. Is Korea really that short on talent?
"That's what everyone says."
As I spoke, I gestured for the Jannabi hunters holding Nikolai back to move elsewhere, and black flames flared up along my spear.
"Right up until they get beaten so hard they end up crippled."
—Big words. I'll rip out your tongue, dry it nicely, and keep it as a souvenir.
With the whirring of turbines, light poured out from various parts of his armor. He'd boosted the output.
"Fast. Hard."
It's always like this. Nikolai closed the distance in an instant and shoved the cannon right in my face.
—If you dodge, the cargo gets wrecked!
I dodged the cannon with an incredulous look. Of course, Nikolai didn't fire.
—Huh?! How'd you know?!
"If destruction was your goal, you'd have just shelled the cargo from way back there."
What idiot would run all the way in with a weapon like that if he planned to destroy it? You don't do that if you're trying not to break it.
I swung my spear wide, black flames roaring along it. He jumped into the air to evade, then fired his boosters several times to widen the distance.
"Not everyone in the world is as stupid as you."
If you've got a brain, you should try using it.
—Smart-mouthed bastards like you, I've crushed them all myself! Hahah!
The barrel of the cannon on his arm shifted, and he unleashed a barrage of mana shots like a machine gun. The incoming rounds were clearly visible to the naked eye.
No need for flashy movements. Just knock them aside with the spear. Deflecting the white-hot mana rounds, I advanced on him.
—Those eyes, those eyes! Let's see if you can keep that look after you're crippled!
He brought the lightsaber down over my head. It didn't reach me. Even if it ever did, it would never land a decisive hit.
"You idiot, your numbers were already crunched."
How much he can move in a second, the power and speed of his mana shots and lightsaber—I don't just charge in blindly, collide once, then go, "Hmm, a strong opponent."
That just makes you look stupid. I can beat this guy.
—No…!
After about five minutes of back-and-forth, his face twisted in panic. Of course, the spear in my hand wasn't something capable of breaking through that sturdy metal shell on its own.
But I wasn't really attacking with the spear itself—I was attacking with the Paradox Flame attached to it. The spear just needed to be durable.
"Stupid bastard."
In a very subtle way, the machine's movements were slowing. I knew why. He failed to block attacks he could block, and failed to dodge attacks he could dodge.
—Why is the auto-defense system acting like this?!
"So you weren't really fighting yourself after all."
Hearing that, I understood. The one defending against my attacks wasn't him—it was the machine.
Thinking about it, it was obvious. A normal human can't track the movements of mana users with their eyes. But a machine can—especially one powered by mana.
The problem with that machine lay in the nervous system I'd had completely replaced at the hospital.
I process situations a bit faster than others, and I react a bit faster.
The tin-can suit Nikolai was wearing was malfunctioning because of that. There's a limit to how fast the human nervous system can transmit signals—but I react beyond that limit, causing errors in the machine.
"The machine isn't at fault."
If he were a brilliant engineer, he might be able to identify and fix the error even now… but if a muscle-bound, bald Russian thug were educated enough to correct the tolerances of such complex equipment, he wouldn't be here robbing a train in the first place.
"Let's see you really get beaten into the dirt out on the Siberian plains today."
As I swung the spear, a blue trail traced its path through the air.