Team Leader Hwang Chan-seung
BOOOOM!
Hwang Seol-hwa stopped the Crimson Arrows pouring down on her, and the method was nothing short of astonishing. The moment she lifted her left elbow, violet energy burst from the wrist guard and blew the arrows apart in an instant.
That's just broken...
It didn't look like simple gear carrying her. The energy inside it was the same as what I'd felt from her eyes. Broken was still broken, though. Of the fifteen Crimson Arrows, roughly ten were shattered in a single breath.
"Heh!"
The sneer that burst from her mouth set my temper burning.
The distance was closing fast.
Dangerous.
I hauled my focus up, and my sense of time changed—as if someone had stretched time itself out like a rubber band. Its flow slowed, but the tension of not knowing when it might snap back swelled through my head.
Feeling the Zero Thread in my mind draw taut, I seized the heat scattering from the shattered arrows and packed it, sharp, into the five that remained.
A ridiculous degree of flame control, possible only because this was crimson fire of the highest order. In that instant the smile vanished from Hwang Seol-hwa's face.
"What is this...?"
KRA-BOOOOM!!
She took the first Crimson Arrow with her body. A kind of stubbornness—she refused to shed speed. The price was brutal.
Crack!
A fissure split the flank of her armor. Hwang Seol-hwa ground her teeth.
"You little..."
Even so, the distance kept closing. Two Crimson Arrows came in at once, and from under her feet a Spear of the Earth shot upward. Her range of perception seemed to have all three of them locked. My own senses, though, were reading her thoughts and movements just as thoroughly.
A strange relief settled in. She looked strong, but at least where perception was concerned, I wasn't falling behind.
Tap.
In that instant she kicked lightly off the ground. Her body sprang like a coil, spinning as she swung her foot—an ordinary spinning back kick, nothing special about it. And yet the two Crimson Arrows it struck burst lightly and lost their force with an ease that felt almost empty.
Hanging in the air, she stretched a foot toward the Earth Sphere.
It wasn't an attack. She had given up her momentum and risen in the first place so she could step on the Earth Sphere and leap at me.
Not a chance.
I dispersed the Spear of the Earth. Her extended foot swept empty air, and Hwang Seol-hwa's face twisted.
"You little bastard, are you serious...?"
In that gap, the sound of ripping air came from her right. A mana warrior, having caught the huge double-bladed axe a mercenary had lost, was flying in along a wide arc. From the other side, Son Soo-min and three mercenaries were charging.
Honestly, it was impressive. Even facing a powerhouse this absurd, they didn't flinch. They moved as if they had a spare life lying around.
Whoosh!
Hwang Seol-hwa's body spun. She slipped smoothly past the double-bladed axe that had been about to smash into her, seized it, and—still carrying the speed of the spin—swung it at the mercenaries.
A movement that simply should not have been possible. Appalling destructive force loaded into the axe in a heartbeat. The mercenaries, terrified, flung themselves clear of the slash, but they couldn't fully escape the reach of that violet energy.
"Gyaaah!"
"Guhk!"
Three of them screamed and went down. In the meantime Son Soo-min actually accelerated and thrust his sword in, but Hwang Seol-hwa only looked annoyed. Rain was still falling through all of it, harder now than before.
I'd kept a last resort in reserve. Generating the maximum flame through Flame Burst and forcing an extreme change in its shape was, for raw destructive power, the best I could do.
But if I did that, the mercenary unit would be wiped out. This wasn't the Labyrinth, and my flames would swallow everything around them. That wasn't what I wanted.
A small mutter reached me.
"I was trying to have a little fun, and you're all being such a pain."
Hwang Seol-hwa's hand ran strangely up along Son Soo-min's sword. Her palm settled lightly on his chest.
BOOOM!!
Violet energy flashed, and with a rough blast Son Soo-min's body shot backward like a bullet. He didn't even manage a scream before he tumbled across the ground.
Hwang Seol-hwa turned this way with a crooked grin. Ten Crimson Arrows flew at her again. She bared her white teeth in a bright smile.
"Oho. So you don't need a team or anything anymore, is that it?"
KRA-KO-KO-KOOM!!!
A tremendous explosion tore loose.
Not fireballs—Crimson Arrows made with Flame Burst. Condensed flame filled the space around Hwang Seol-hwa.
It looked like a proper attack, but I'd already assumed it would fail. A strike that would be hard-pressed to land a real blow. Sure enough, her small figure burst out through the flames.
"Drop dead already, you arrogant little mage...?"
KRA-KOOOOOOM!!!!!
Right then, a massive column of water dropped out of the air and slammed down on the crown of her head. For all the speed she'd been charging with, her small body was driven into the ground. She couldn't even scream as the water pressure crumpled her.
"Kkeee...!?"
The Crimson Arrows had only ever been a diversion. I'd scattered her attention with the Flame Burst detonation and drawn in as much water as I could. The golf course's artificial pond, which I'd had my eye on from the start—its volume was more than enough to stop her.
I had no intention whatsoever of stopping there.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!!!!
The water surrounding Hwang Seol-hwa froze solid in an instant. Her small frame vanished inside the ice. Then several streams burst out of it. I caught them in both hands and poured lightning into them to the limit.
BZZZZZT!!!!!
Lightning blue enough to sting the eyes raced along the streams and into the ice. My mana dropped out from under me and dizziness rushed in, but instead of stopping I poured the lightning even harder. Inside the ice, Hwang Seol-hwa's body convulsed, and a grotesque moan began to leak from her mouth.
—Gegegegegeh...
The ice melted under the force of it. For a moment the huge chunk went half-transparent, and inside it I saw Hwang Seol-hwa with her tongue stuck out and her eyes rolled back.
A body shaking hard. White steam rising off her whole frame. And then—
—Heh?
The corner of her mouth drew a soft curve.
KRA-AAAAAANG!!!!
A roar burst out. Shattered ice flew in every direction, and the column of water pouring straight down lost its way, blocked by violet energy. With eyes leaking that energy in streams, Hwang Seol-hwa looked at me.
"So this was the real thing, huh?"
Violet energy drifted from her nose and mouth like smoke. A chill ran down my spine. I could feel death rising to my chin.
"Get as far away as you can."
I told the mercenaries in a cracked voice. Reading the air, they scooped up Son Soo-min and ran. Hwang Seol-hwa didn't spare them so much as a glance. She only smiled.
"Never in my life have I seen a mage this insane. No way you've mastered every attribute skill, but it looks like you built your gear with variables like this in mind. Guess you're about as far gone in the head as I am."
So it had to go all the way to the end. Thinking that, I drew my mana up to the limit. Flame surged roughly into the air.
Grrrrrr...
Heat pushed into the swelling flame, and a beast's growl leaked out of it. Hwang Seol-hwa's mouth fell open.
"Hehh..."
After all those brutal years, after everything I'd survived to get here—I couldn't die to a madwoman like her. While I was thinking it, Hwang Seol-hwa's figure blurred.
I had to trust my senses, not my eyes. I layered shields toward the point where the ripple burst. Twenty spearheads erupted from the ground and filled the space beneath her feet.
At the same time, fog rose thick around us. I'd even used Frost Breath, a skill I'd never properly tried. Then the fireball I'd packed to the limit—
KRA-AAAAAAANG!!!!
In that instant a pure white light dropped vertically out of the sky. I hadn't sensed it. It simply fell, like an accident.
I couldn't throw the fireball. I had to understand what I was dealing with first.
"Enough."
The voice rang out a beat late. I lifted my head and stared ahead. Dust thrown up thick by the impact of the landing scattered in every direction at a single gesture from the man who had suddenly appeared.
A massive crater. At its center stood a giant of a man. Rain tapped against armor that glowed with a faint light.
"What?"
Hwang Seol-hwa's sharp voice rang out.
"Why are you sticking a spoon in my meal!?"
The man glanced her over and clicked his tongue.
"...Who's sticking a spoon in anything?"
Then he turned toward me and bowed his head, polite.
"Hwang Chan-seung, team leader of the Investigation Division. I came after receiving a request for support, but..."
"Hey, can't you hear me!?"
"...I never imagined you'd gotten tangled up with a madwoman like that."
Having stated his affiliation, Hwang Chan-seung slowly turned.
He spoke to Hwang Seol-hwa in a flat voice.
"This really isn't the time. The incident you caused last time is still on file with the Investigation Division."
"That was already paid off. I had a hard time settling that one! You people clearly said you'd wipe the record..."
"We never said we'd erase it completely. It's a one-year probation. You do know that if you cause trouble within the year, the punishment gets heavier, don't you?"
Hwang Seol-hwa's face hardened.
"H-heavier punishment?"
"That's right. You've been causing incidents since you were a minor, and not just one or two. You might walk out of prison around the time your hair's gone gray."
"W-why me? What did I even do wrong?"
"In a situation like this, do we really need to argue over who was in the wrong?"
Written across Hwang Chan-seung's face was a hard resolve that he, of all people, would never believe her. Feeling it, Hwang Seol-hwa ground her teeth.
"Look at this. I'm the one who's been wronged! I was just doing a guard job, having a barbecue on the villa roof because an old colleague said we ought to eat something good. And then that crazy mage bastard threw a Flame Burst at the roof!"
"I don't even need to ask how many stars that 'old colleague' of yours was wearing. I can picture it well enough. Mind if I meet him and have a little talk?"
"You can't! That damned bastard barbecued him!"
Hwang Seol-hwa glared at me, sharp as a blade.
"Hey, you, Mr. Mage! Say something, will you? I'm seriously the victim here!"
I could roughly guess how things stood. I nodded.
"That part's true."
That Hwang Seol-hwa was a complete lunatic was a fact I couldn't deny.
But from her side, and from mine, we had only been carrying out the jobs we'd been given. I could have spun a lie and had her hauled off. If a monster like that held a grudge and actually managed to escape, though, I could forget about ever sleeping easy again.
"I think it's fair to say we were both carrying out legitimate requests."
That was enough.
I'd realized it late, busy dealing with her attacks. The line the Tracking skill had etched into the ground was long gone. The target who had orchestrated this was already burned away.
There were no survivors toward the villa either. Hwang Seol-hwa, monster that she was, had come through fine, but everyone else was dead and scattered to dust. If the mercenaries got the goods back safely, the request would be perfectly resolved.
"Understood."
Hwang Chan-seung bowed his head to me. He cracked his neck, then turned back toward Hwang Seol-hwa.
And the polite tone changed in an instant.
"You're coming with me."
Hwang Seol-hwa narrowed her eyes.
"What's with this atmosphere? Since when did the Association's Investigation Division get this biased?"
"Shut up, you crazy bitch."
"So it turns out you people were only ever strict with me? This time at least, I'm in the exact same spot as that mage! If you're hauling someone off, you ought to haul him too!"
Bright light rippled off Hwang Chan-seung's body.
"He isn't on probation. Don't make this difficult. Let's go quietly."
"N-no... I really didn't do anything! Hey, Mr. Mage! Come with me and testify that I'm innocent, won't you? H-hey, hey, let go! Don't you know official duty is inviolable, you big bear of a man!?"
Noisy to the very end, Hwang Seol-hwa was dragged off in Hwang Chan-seung's grip. Her voice, thick with grievance, faded beyond the dark. Only then did the tension leave me.
"Hoo..."
Transcendence—that monstrous trait. Thanks to it I'd thought I'd grown fairly strong, but maybe that had been arrogance.
The Purple-Eyed Maiden was far stronger than I'd imagined.
If I hadn't requested support when I did. If Hwang Chan-seung hadn't stepped between us at just the right moment. If I'd met Hwang Seol-hwa with everything I had—what would the result have been?
I couldn't know exactly, but it might not have been a very good one.
Meeting a powerhouse like this on a request that had looked simple was unmistakably bad luck. But one thing seemed certain. I still wasn't enough. I had to become stronger.
A forest pressed down under darkness. Hwang Chan-seung scratched his chin with a blank face.
"No, I'm telling you, it's true! I fought completely seriously!"
In front of him, Hwang Seol-hwa was still hopping and shouting.
"I'm a pure victim! Do you know what that bastard did to me!? He wrecked me with fire arrows, smacked me around with a mana warrior, and then—fuck—dozens of spearheads popped out of the ground like land mines!"
She was so indignant that spit flew from her mouth. Hwang Chan-seung said, irritated,
"Calm down and then talk."
"Would you be calm? This is police brutality! The abuse of state power!!! That bastard dragged lake water over, slammed me into the ground, froze me, and even tortured me with electricity! He sprayed some weird fog too! Oh, right!"
Hwang Seol-hwa lifted her arm, the picture of someone deeply wronged. Armor wrapped her torso without a gap, and a large crack ran through it.
"Look at this! If I hadn't had my armor, I'd be dead. Even after that, do I look like the one who's purely in the wrong?"
Hwang Chan-seung's eyes fixed on the crack. Above the broken armor, a thick heat could still be felt. The line of his mouth drew a light curve.
"Wh-what's so funny? Look, Team Leader! So criminals don't have human rights in this country, is that it!?"
"You just admitted it."
"Admitted what!?"
"That you're a criminal."
Hwang Chan-seung's hand grabbed the scruff of Hwang Seol-hwa's neck. Dragged along the forest path, she screamed like a madwoman.
"Female officer! Bring a female officer, you damned Association bastards!!!!!!"