What Did He Say to An Yumin Inside the Barrier? (1)
Instructor Lee Suyeon's explanation continued.
"True to the name Unknown, there's no known information about him. But the Association has raised this villain's threat level to S-class."
A black hoodie and jeans. And a chilling mask with blood-red staining around the eyes. A named villain known to the public as Unknown.
But it was unfair. I never wore some middle-school-syndrome mask like that! Just a baseball cap, a black mask, and a hoodie covering my face. Looking at the serious expressions on the cadets' faces made me feel awkwardly embarrassed for no reason.
The cadets whispered among themselves.
"They said Unknown completely crushed Horror Hole's entire body, right? That Horror Hole who massacred named hunters and villains alike — taken out in a single blow."
"And they still don't even know his identity. What the hell is this guy?"
"If he were a hunter, there's no way he'd give up that bounty and fame. Obviously a villain. No idea what his goal is, though."
"Anyway, good thing he's been quiet. If Unknown starts moving again, the entire hunter world and the underworld will go on high alert."
"Could just be hype, though. If he were really that amazing, he wouldn't have gone dark for years — he'd have pulled off something even bigger."
Just as they said. The only person present who had actually witnessed me hunting Horror Hole was Jeong Siu. I glanced at his face. Jeong Siu hurriedly averted his eyes.
No need to worry about my identity leaking.
Strictly speaking, Jeong Siu hadn't even been tracking me. He'd been tailing Horror Hole and stumbled across me by pure chance. That was how thoroughly Unknown's trail had left no trace anywhere.
Taking down Horror Hole had been during the Authority Tutorial. The system had navigated me to a perfect blind spot like a GPS.
Instructor Lee Suyeon continued.
"So the black mages raised Horror Hole's corpse as an undead and extracted information. All they got was the current composite sketch — and a single message."
Her expression turned serious.
"That Unknown is an existence on a completely different dimension from any known Awakened. The conclusion was that he's a monster you absolutely must not touch."
It was an expression uncharacteristic of the woman who always walked around with a bright smile. For my part, I didn't mind the high evaluation. The title Unknown — and all those various buffs that grew stronger against underworld figures — seemed to scale even higher the more the other party feared my name.
"But you lot will never have to face Unknown yourselves, so don't worry too much."
At those words, Jeong Siu's face went pale. Unaware of what was going through his mind, Lee Suyeon pressed on.
"For now, analyzing Horror Hole will be more useful to you than this Unknown whose identity even Association investigators don't know."
She flipped to the next page of the presentation.
"A connection was recently uncovered. Between Horror Hole and Crimson Teeth."
At the words Crimson Teeth, the cadets fixed their eyes on the screen. I looked at it as well.
Crimson Teeth, huh.
In the original game, Full Moon's Grey City, countless villains appeared. A villain was a criminal officially designated by the Hunter Association. Most had their roots in the underworld, but once you became a named villain, you made a name for yourself independent of the underworld itself. The larger an underworld organization, the more rules it had to uphold and the stricter its hierarchy. Villains who pursued only their own desires naturally walked their own independent path.
Which is why there are countless villain organizations too.
When their goals aligned, they banded together. And among them, Crimson Teeth was an extremely dangerous group.
"Horror Hole was part of Crimson Teeth?"
"Our department instructor said the same thing. Even if we get deployed later, we have to avoid those guys no matter what."
"Yeah. Crimson Teeth is nothing like half-baked small-fry villains. They freely use those... magic stones you're not supposed to use."
Absolute Awakened supremacy and a force-first doctrine. Above all, Crimson Teeth unhesitatingly used forbidden magic stones that even the underworld rarely touched. A kind of doping potion.
In exchange, it eats away at the lifespan of your mana heart.
That was why they were far more dangerous than others of the same rank.
On the screen, the Crimson mark emblem overlapped with Horror Hole's photograph. Lee Suyeon spoke.
"Horror Hole appeared so suddenly with so little information that identifying him was difficult, but now the villain's past has been fully revealed. He was a member of Crimson Teeth — and he used those Chaos-attribute magic stones to become extremely powerful in a short time."
Choi Hana, sitting beside me, murmured quietly.
"Chaos-attribute magic stones..."
Just as she said. Beyond the six major attributes already known to the world, there existed an off-spec attribute whose properties had never been properly classified: Chaos. And monsters that possessed that attribute were more than three times stronger than normal.
Horror Hole was the same.
Horror Hole had been a villain, not a monster, but he had consumed a potion refined from those magic stones during our fight. If I hadn't been in the middle of the tutorial, the killing intent he radiated alone would have wrecked my body at the time.
Lee Suyeon continued explaining Crimson Teeth's known named villains.
"Then is Unknown connected to Crimson Teeth?"
A cadet asked the question in the middle of her lecture. Lee Suyeon's expression was grave.
"It's possible. There's a hypothesis that Unknown eliminated Horror Hole because Horror Hole was ignoring the organization's orders — that he personally executed him."
Of course it was nonsense. But it wasn't entirely wrong, either. To reign at the summit of the underworld as Unknown, I would need to use them with exquisite precision.
And the villains who would attack the cadets tonight were members of that very Crimson Teeth.
B-class villain. Bone China.
A villain who used black magic involving bones, true to the name. I'd have to be careful — but what I was after was the finishing blow.
Work hard beating him up for me, Aegis.
Bone China carried an item that would register as a Mirror. Used well, he would make an excellent reward shuttle.
The third day of training continued. As Instructor Lee Suyeon had explained during orientation, this was villain-suppression training. In a training ground laid out like a city street set, the exercise that had begun that morning stretched into the evening.
"Yumin! Please finish him yourself!"
Jeong Ungyeong's voice rang out. An Yumin raised her sword.
A low, resonant hum. Water-attribute mana climbed the blade. Then wind-attribute mana coiled around the sword, freezing it at high speed.
A soft slash. The ice blade — Frozen Blade — took the villain's head clean off.
"Yumin! Killing the villain costs points!!"
Jeong Ungyeong shouted. She had gotten too absorbed. No — the truth was she had been thinking too much.
"My mistake. The difficulty went up, so controlling my strength isn't easy."
"Ah, not at all! It happens! But it was perfect! A sword strike that drops a C+-class villain in an instant!"
Jeong Ungyeong answered with a soft, squinting smile. He was handsome enough that even the high-class female cadets kept glancing his way — but An Yumin had no thoughts to spare for that. Her mind was filled with only one person.
Lee Junwoo...
That last sword strike had been the same. Ever since her second awakening during Aegis's hero activities, controlling the power of Frozen Blade had never been easy.
— Stop the sword two seconds earlier!
Junwoo's instructions had always been there. Even looking back now, his combat command ability had been perfect. Whenever Junwoo gave orders, she always performed beyond her own capabilities.
But from the second semester of third year, Junwoo had started acting strangely. His operating became imprecise. He couldn't focus on anything.
Back then...
She had thought it was because he was pushing her away and spending time with Song Sia and Ha Yeeun. But An Yumin had misunderstood him.
Did I really drive Junwoo that far?
Because of Aegis's activities, Junwoo had been pushed to his limits — body and mind. The school nurse had testified to that fact. But An Yumin hadn't known. Instead she had exiled him and condemned him as a shameless, terrible man. As a result, Junwoo had even developed panic disorder.
"As expected, you're incredible, Yumin! That villain was at least C+-class! Even if we cleared it as a party, without the main dealer's decisive attack..."
Jeong Ungyeong kept praising her, but she felt not the slightest joy.
No. If it had been Junwoo...
Back in high school academy, every time she grew, Junwoo had always been there with praise and encouragement.
I want to hear those words again.
The new Aegis member, Jeong Ungyeong. His skills were unexpectedly excellent as well — especially tactical direction. In terms of operating, he was almost comparable to Junwoo.
But he's not Junwoo.
Junwoo's encouragement had always carried genuine sincerity. That gaze that looked at An Yumin so warmly. That gentleness had melted even a heart that had never wanted to spare a man a second glance. It had remained constant right up until the moment of exile. Only then, blinded by jealousy toward other girls, she had failed to see Junwoo's kindness for what it was.
She regretted it. She wanted to go back to the days when Junwoo always came to her first. But the water had already been spilled. Like a sandcastle that had collapsed into nothing, her relationship with Junwoo was over.
No... no... somehow...
Thinking of him made tears threaten to well up unbidden. But she was in the middle of training. She couldn't show such weakness in front of the high class.
"Whew. At least today our pride as high class is intact. Honestly, even associating with those middle-class types is disgusting!"
Beside her, Ha Yeeun was spouting self-important nonsense. The pig who had collapsed from hunger yesterday — the party member who had been completely useless when it actually came time to take down the boss monster. She had gorged herself at breakfast this morning and was now full of energy again.
Yumin wanted to snap at her, but she held back. Once that pig of a nun got her head on straight, she had performed brilliantly. In party play, that massive holy power buff was a huge help to their sustain.
Right. I have to become a hero.
A hero so famous that Junwoo wouldn't be able to refuse her feelings. A villain floated unbidden into her mind.
Unknown. Someday I'll catch him for sure.
Right now he was a dangerous villain she absolutely must not encounter. But if she grew strong enough to take him down, her reputation as a hero would skyrocket overnight. That ambition had nothing to do with a hero's sense of justice. It was solely to bring Junwoo back to her.
The Junwoo of now... has another woman.
Junwoo with Choi Hana had looked completely at peace — so much so that even the panic disorder she had caused him seemed to have vanished. He could go on dates in crowded shopping districts. Compared to herself, who had been able to give him nothing, Choi Hana clearly meant something entirely different to him. The two of them had even stuck together as the same party throughout Hell Week in the middle class. As a fellow woman, she could feel how thoroughly Choi Hana was working her charms on Junwoo.
"Kh..."
Another stabbing pain tore through her chest. The thought that Choi Hana had stolen Junwoo from her made her entire body tremble with fury. Now that they were in the same party, the two of them would spend even more time together. And grow that much further from her.
I don't want that!!
She wanted to see Junwoo. He was already training somewhere nearby — but she wanted to see the Junwoo who had looked only at her.
More... I have to grow even more.
And during this Hell Week, Junwoo was putting on a performance beyond imagination in the middle class. Already, among the other high-class cadets, Junwoo's name had been mentioned several times.
Then I can't lose either.
Right now, she couldn't think of any way to reconnect with Junwoo other than becoming a better hunter — becoming a hero. And if he improved as a hunter as well, that possibility would only grow more distant. She absolutely could not show him a version of herself inferior to him.
And then there was Song Sia.
Song Sia was suspicious yesterday too.
Unable to sleep, she had been swinging her sword outside for a while when she saw Song Sia sneaking back late at night.
"......"
And today, Song Sia hadn't spoken a single word. She had always been quiet and cold by nature, but now she seemed somehow restless and anxious. That appearance inevitably made An Yumin think of Junwoo again.
Did she meet Junwoo yesterday?
Before, it would have been such an absurd thought she would have just snorted. That half-vampire with ice in her veins was a sociopath who saw even people as nothing but numbers. She should have despised the powerless Junwoo more than anyone.
But Junwoo has changed recently...
She might have taken an interest in the dramatically improved Junwoo. Song Sia was the daughter of Valhalla's Apostles, that massive guild. She would always want tools that could elevate her own standing.
Well, even if they did meet, Junwoo would have rejected her.
So there was nothing to worry about on that front. A half-vampire who would never understand an emotion like love. Completely different from herself.
She was resting briefly, still thinking of Junwoo, when—
"Then the last villain remaining is the final one! This is a training exercise in safely evacuating civilians against a B-class villain, so there's no need to be too tense..."
But at that exact moment—
"Everyone, watch out!!"
Lee Junwoo came charging into the high-class zone.
What? Why is Junwoo...?
But at his words, An Yumin immediately scanned her surroundings. In the middle of the city street stood a man draped in a black robe.
That is... no way?
She knew by instinct. This was no training villain like the ones that had appeared so far. This was the real thing. The villain wore a bone-chilling smile.
A sharp crack. In that instant, a barrier sprang up around the space enclosing her.
Damn it! We're trapped.
A barrier created by that villain. It was no different from a prison. And the cadet who had been sealed inside with her spoke.
"Looks like we got trapped together."
The middle-class cadet who had come running to them just moments ago. Lee Junwoo.