Chapter 051
Training can never become the real thing. No matter how hard you try, what can't be, simply can't be.
There are things you can gain only through training, and things you can gain only through actual combat. It had been over a month and a half since the training began.
"Now you're finally usable."
Han Sang-ah passed. At this level, she wouldn't get beaten senseless wherever she went.
"I… don't feel like I've gotten stronger at all, though?"
Lee Se-eun replied while popping her dislocated shoulder back into place with a dull crack. Of course she wouldn't feel stronger.
It's not like I was slacking off while she was getting stronger.
"My ability to evaluate others objectively is still better than yours, Se-eun noona."
"Hey! How can you say that?"
At my words, Lee Se-eun immediately protested and pulled the wooden chopsticks out of the cup ramen she was eating, throwing them at me. I managed to dodge, and the chopsticks buried themselves into a utility pole instead.
If those had hit me, I'd have been sent straight to the hospital. I had to admire the power it took to stick wooden chopsticks into a utility pole.
But still…
"Has this noona finally lost her mind? Throwing weapons at people?"
"Come on, it's just a joke."
After spending quite a bit of time together, Lee Se-eun had begun threatening my life in a variety of ways.
She might think it's a joke, but from the perspective of the one on the receiving end, there's no way to just laugh it off.
It felt like a bear charging at you because it's happy and wants a hug. After checking the chopsticks stuck in the utility pole one more time, I turned my gaze to Han Sang-ah.
"You haven't reached the goal yet. You know that, right?"
The margin of error in her attacks was currently fluctuating between 0.4. On good days, it dropped to around 0.3, but since the original target was 0.2, there was still a long way to go.
"Yeah, I know."
She had successfully identified her maximum output and brought her movements fully under her own control.
"If they're around my level, I'm confident I won't lose."
I replied simply to Han Sang-ah's statement.
"They're not just around your level. You can beat opponents who are about twice as strong as you."
"That's impossible."
Han Sang-ah clearly didn't believe me.
But it was true. The training I put her through was the path I myself had walked. And I'd had countless—really, countless—opportunities to fight people stronger than me.
The entire focus of this training was on winning even against stronger opponents. Well, once Han Sang-ah faces someone stronger than herself, she'll understand, so I didn't bother correcting her.
Han Sang-ah sat down and closed her eyes to heal the injuries from being beaten up.
"This time, it's my turn."
I checked the time and went to inspect the condition of the radio. Then I frowned when I realized that only static crackled through the connected radio, with no response coming back.
"Did bad luck hit me this year or something?"
Why does something like this always happen when I'm the one holding the radio? I immediately shouted out the window.
"The radio's acting up! I think we need to check it out!"
As soon as she heard me, Han Sang-ah opened her eyes and stood up. Lee Se-eun also tossed away the can of drink she'd been holding.
Looks like it was time to work, whether we liked it or not. We immediately boarded the military vehicle that had been on standby. Han Sang-ah was driving.
After experiencing her driving skills on Gyodong Island, I fastened my seatbelt and prayed that we'd arrive safely in Dover today.
At the main base of the Descendants of Dangun, Kim Ji-hyun stared blankly with clouded eyes at the sandbag swaying in front of her.
"…"
This won't work. She had managed to return to a level where she could function in everyday life. But after suffering like hell to recover the muscle that that bastard had burned away, this was as far as she could go.
She put all her strength into a kick and slammed it into the sandbag, but the power was no more than that of an ordinary person.
"Aaaah!"
In the end, she couldn't hold it in and began wildly punching the wall. Normally, those punches alone would have brought the wall down, but nothing of the sort happened.
All the effort she had built up over a long time had turned to ashes in an instant. She knew it instinctively.
No matter how hard she tried, in this condition she could never become more than an average-level hunter.
The captain visited her regularly and said, "As long as you're willing to stay with us, that's enough."
The captain said effort alone was enough, but she couldn't accept that.
"How… how am I supposed to…"
Excessive stress had led to insomnia and even loss of appetite. The medical staff warned her that overtraining would only damage her body, but she simply couldn't stop.
"Are you at it again today?"
A question thrown out along with a loud burp. When Kim Ji-hyun turned around, she saw Seo Gyeon-u scratching the folds of his belly with his hand.
"What do you want now? Did you come to mock me?"
At her sharp response, Seo Gyeon-u grinned, baring his teeth.
"What would I gain from mocking you? It's just that… I've been conducting various experiments, you see."
"As if there's anyone who doesn't know that."
Seo Gyeon-u was a doctor affiliated with the Descendants of Dangun, conducting a wide range of research. In addition to the projects assigned by the captain, he had several independent studies underway, all of which the captain knowingly turned a blind eye to.
"I ran a few experiments using the corpses of monsters from the contaminated zones. Heuheuheuheh."
Letting out a clogged, wheezing laugh, Seo Gyeon-u pulled out a small vial. Inside it were jet-black stone fragments, dark as pitch.
"What is that?"
Seo Gyeon-u's eyes, buried deep in flesh, stared sharply at Kim Ji-hyun.
"The path toward your wish, Ms. Kim Ji-hyun."
"My wish? You think you know what that is?"
Seo Gyeon-u tapped the vial lightly, then rubbed his belly with a satisfied expression.
"With that weak body, no matter how hard you try, you'll never be able to take revenge on that guy, Yoo Chan-seok. Seo Yeon-ju couldn't do it either, could she?"
"Don't talk about Yeon-ju. She tried her best."
Seo Gyeon-u clicked his tongue a few times before continuing.
"This has already gone through clinical trials."
He dressed it up nicely by calling it clinical trials, but in truth, it was human experimentation.
Seo Gyeon-u pulled out his smartphone and showed Kim Ji-hyun three videos. Two failures, one success.
"Getting the purification and ratios right was such a pain. Heehee."
When the black gemstones were embedded into a human body, they wriggled inside as if alive. In the failed cases, blackened veins bulged out from around the insertion point, and soon after, the body burst apart, scattering everywhere.
When Kim Ji-hyun frowned, Seo Gyeon-u scratched his head and spoke.
"You have no idea how hard it was without anyone to clean things up…."
Instead of responding, Kim Ji-hyun focused on the video of the successful case. The veins bulged black in the same way at first, but then gradually subsided.
"How much stronger did they get?"
"About 7.6 times stronger physically… and the test subject originally couldn't sense mana at all, but not only could they sense it afterward, they already possessed a considerable amount of mana within their body."
Holding mana inside the body? Kim Ji-hyun stared at Seo Gyeon-u in disbelief.
"Then that means you could mass-produce hunters."
Seo Gyeon-u let out a soft chuckle and wiped his runny nose with his lab coat sleeve.
"To get this level of performance, you need good materials."
Even if the performance were lower, that meant it would still be possible to create something at least resembling a hunter without top-grade materials.
"I don't feel great about using something extracted from monster bodies."
"Have you heard of meat extracted from feces?"
She had no idea why he suddenly brought up something so disgusting, but Kim Ji-hyun listened in silence.
"It was developed in Japan, and now Korea uses this technology to mass-produce protein and supply it to Northeast Asia."
She already knew about it. Food waste was dried into powder and processed under the pretense of relief supplies.
They called it aid, but in reality, its main purpose was to dispose of household waste generated in Korea.
"Does it really matter what raw materials you use, as long as the result is good?"
"…"
It didn't sound wrong. When Seo Gyeon-u lightly shook the vial, the gemstones clinked together with a clear sound.
Without using that, could she really regain her former strength—and go beyond it? Impossible.
Then could she live the rest of her life like this, without taking revenge on Yoo Chan-seok, the man who had crippled her? Kim Ji-hyun herself couldn't accept that.
Her hand slowly reached toward the vial.
"I'll either die… or live."
"You'll live. And you'll be better than before."
The black gemstones in the vial rattled against each other. As if entranced, Kim Ji-hyun slowly extended her hand and grasped it.
"I just have to embed them, right?"
"Yes. I'll take care of you until you regain consciousness!"
Opening the vial, Kim Ji-hyun embedded the gemstones into her own arm. The gems wriggled and burrowed into her flesh like parasites. After some time, Kim Ji-hyun's body began to tremble—then her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed to the floor.
Dr. Seo Gyeon-u looked down at the fallen Kim Ji-hyun with eyes full of fascination and anticipation.
Lee Se-eun and I once again marveled at Han Sang-ah's flawless driving skills. The car we were in now was probably the same.
Otherwise, there was no way it would be screaming for its life with that shrieking engine noise as it sped along. Meanwhile, Han Sang-ah, driving so roughly, showed not the slightest change in expression—calm as a still lake, as if fear didn't exist for her.
"We're almost there."
From here, we could already see an enormous amount of smoke rising from Dover, as if the place were on fire.
"No matter what, the government's still intact."
Turning someone else's land into this state—either they had incredible guts, or they truly feared nothing.
"Hey, that's…."
At that moment, someone burst out from within the smoke that covered the distant sky. Kim Ji-hyun—the woman whose body had been covered in piercings like barnacles clinging to a wreck.
—Found you. You finally came, Yoo Chan-seok. You're dead.
Kim Ji-hyun was floating in the air. When she extended one hand forward, the black smoke that blanketed Dover's sky swirled together behind her, forming the shape of two pairs of wings.
"Please focus on handling the situation."
That Taekwondo-pierced lunatic had really come back with wings sprouting from her back.
Judging by the look of her, she didn't care what happened—she just wanted to beat me down first.
"I'll jump out here."
After saying that, I leapt from the truck. From afar, Kim Ji-hyun saw me and, wrapped in black smoke, flew down and landed in front of me with a powerful flap of her wings.
Like ink dropped into a glass of water, smoke spread out from the ground where she landed, briefly obscuring her form. Even so, the blood-red glow of her eyes was clearly visible through it.
"Hey. Looks like you came all this way because you want another beating?"
"Every single day was hell."
With heavy footsteps, the smoke churned and Kim Ji-hyun emerged. I snorted and spoke.
"Oh my, sweetheart… looks like half your face is gone?"
It wasn't a metaphor. Half of her face was intact, but on the other half there was no flesh or muscle—only pale bone exposed.
It looked as if someone had torn away the flesh from half her face. And yet, as if she were something grand, a glossy black laurel-crown-like object floated above her head.
Could that still be called human? Maybe before—but not anymore.