The Nymphs and the Hero of the Demon Castle! # 6
"Even with my help, Moralis failed to catch Haildo…! Ma Wangjun, you useless fool, you're worth less than a paper straw that can't even be recycled…! Once this business is over, I'm replacing my personal servant…! Ma Wangjun, you're finished…!"
Moralis, the Muddy Water Nymph, scrunched up her face and flew into a rage.
Ma Wangjun was utterly fed up, but he played it cool, pressing ice his underlings had brought against his face as he bellowed at everyone around him.
"Block Haildo from leaving the island! You good-for-nothing bastards! Now! Move!"
"Th-that's the thing, he's just too strong—"
"Are you kidding me right now? You can't stop one guy who only just made A-rank? Useless, all of you! Every last one of your necks is forfeit! Your necks! You worthless idiots!"
Vvvvmm—.
The rings on Ma Wangjun's fingers pulsed with light as he spoke.
Then Ma Wangjun retreated to his secret office to pack his things.
"Damn it all, I'm getting off this island! I'm going dark for a while!"
Just as Moralis had predicted, Haildo had clearly come to this island through a government informant or some equivalent official channel.
If he stayed put, a strike team backed by public opinion would come crashing down on this little paradise of his.
And then Ma Wangjun would be crushed in a subjugation operation.
"I was so close! Damn it! Not yet. I can't face them yet. Not yet—."
It was true that Ma Wangjun had courted and absorbed figures from the political and business worlds, but he still wasn't strong enough to take on a monolithic entity called 'the state.'
So Ma Wangjun chose to flee and lie low.
He would escape while his underlings drew everyone's eyes.
"It's a shame to lose everything I've built, but it's fine. As long as I have these coins! As long as I have these Whispering Coins! Moralis! You've been keeping the coins safe, haven't you? Hmm?"
Swipe—.
Ma Wangjun drew the Whispering Coins from his pocket.
Every single day, he had indulged the whims and annoying requests of Moralis, the Muddy Water Nymph, and in what seemed like a gesture of goodwill, she had paid him with these Whispering Coins—.
And that was what had made Ma Wangjun what he was today.
Therefore— if he could only get his hands on more of these coins, Ma Wangjun could rise again as many times as it took.
"Mwehehe, as it happens, I've kept them all safe and sound…!"
Moralis dug into the ground beneath the wall where she had hidden the coins so carefully.
But then—.
Something felt wrong.
The soil where the coins had been buried had been completely dug up, and the coins were gone!
"Guaack…! The coins have all been stolen…! I hid them where no one could ever find them, under this very wall, and Moralis's coins are all gone…! This is definitely the work of those nymph sisters…!"
Guaack—.
That, supposedly, was the scream nymphs let out when they suffered a shock severe enough to wound their very souls.
Moralis let out her guaack scream, and Ma Wangjun, watching her, grimaced.
"What—!? It must be that bastard Haildo…! He must have had the nymphs recover my coins…!"
"They're not your coins, they're Moralis's coins…!"
Ma Wangjun felt as if the blood in his body was running ice-cold and boiling over in turns.
But he was a man who had passed through countless detention cells and living hells since the age of sixteen, and he judged the situation coldly.
That idiot Haildo didn't seem to know how to use the coins, did he? Maybe this is an opportunity. A crisis is just a bigger opportunity in disguise! Just like the day Seona dumped me was the day I seized my chance!
Ma Wangjun resolved to steal whatever coins Haildo's nymphs might have gathered as well, and grow even stronger.
At this point, it made more sense to deal with Haildo directly.
"There's no way I'll lose to some outdated fossil who only just scraped into A-rank! I'll take him down fast, strip him of everything he has, and get off this rock to Korea—twice as strong!"
Vvvvvmm—.
The rainbow-colored rings on Ma Wangjun's fingers glowed even more menacingly.
"I'll handle the nymph sisters myself, so Ma Wangjun, don't you dare make another idiotic mistake…! If you slip up again, I'll beat you within an inch of your life…!"
Moralis scrunched up her face and raged at him.
Ma Wangjun exercised every ounce of patience he had as he looked at her.
If I want to gather and use more coins, I need her. If I fight Moralis now, all the insults and humiliations I've endured will have been for nothing.
He and Moralis were hardly the best of partners.
Which was exactly why the easy warmth between Haildo and his nymphs struck Ma Wangjun as eerily strange.
Were nymphs not all snarky little terrors like Moralis? If they're not, then maybe dumping Moralis and stealing Haildo's nymphs isn't such a bad move!
His only worry was that Haildo might have already fled the island with the nymphs in tow.
Ma Wangjun scanned the feeds from the CCTVs he'd planted all over the island, and there they were—Haildo and Lee Jina, evacuating people on the beach.
"Even now, you're playing the good samaritan? You insufferable bastard! That blockheaded way of thinking of yours will squeeze the life out of you and cost you everything!"
Whoosh—!
Ma Wangjun sprinted toward the beach.
"We've evacuated most of the people! And it looks like Ari made it off the island safely too!"
Lee Jina said.
The number of variables that could spring up on us had shrunk, and relief came flooding in.
Now, to find Ma Wangjun, I shouted up at the sky.
"Kalinoi! See anything out there…!?"
Kalinoi, soaring through the sky, had detection abilities rivaling a state-of-the-art reconnaissance aircraft. Owls are notoriously poor at seeing in daylight, but Bonbon Calinoi, apparently, never got that memo.
━Hoo, hoo…!
Just then, Kalinoi hooted in a voice that said we've got company.
As she banked and I hurried in the direction she flew, I spotted Ma Wangjun approaching at the head of troops wearing helmets and full tactical gear.
They looked less like an organized crime crew and more like a national strike team, and their skills seemed genuinely respectable.
As they encircled us, Ma Wangjun spoke.
"Haildo, let me ask you something first. Make a deal with me. If you and I join hands, we can take this island—and far bigger lands besides! Korea, and maybe even the whole world!"
Click-clack—.
Clack—.
Ma Wangjun spoke as though offering a generous proposal, but the gangsters around him were busy racking the guns in their hands.
They looked to be awakened around D-rank, F-rank, or E-rank—not much individually, but in numbers like these, they could get dangerous fast.
"Come on, Haildo. Take my hand. You know it deep down, don't you? How much of a pain it is to follow the rules and walk the line! If you're aiming for the top, you can't be picky about your methods!"
We were at a hair-trigger standoff when Lee Jina pressed her index finger to her temple and shouted.
"Leave the small fry to me! Haildo, you focus on Ma Wangjun!"
She was clearly about to do something.
Her tone was so brimming with confidence that I was mid-thought, wondering what on earth she had up her sleeve—
"Hey, why'd you glare at me like that!"
"You little punk, did you just curse at me?!"
Thwack! Crack—!
The armed thugs began swinging rifle butts and throwing punches at each other.
"What's wrong with you all! Why are you fighting each other?!"
"Shut up!"
Chaos erupted in an instant.
I could tell Lee Jina had done something.
HAD she manipulated multiple people's emotions simultaneously?
Compared to when she'd barely scraped by against the Troll King, her control over her ability had clearly improved.
Ma Wangjun grasped the situation quickly too.
"Manipulating other people's emotions—impressive ability. Fitting for the little sister of Seona, who loves throwing her weight around and ordering people about. But there's a weakness—."
Swipe—.
Ma Wangjun raised the index finger of his right hand.
Vvvvmm—.
A fluorescent ring blazed with light.
The guns the small fry had dropped rose up into the air.
"Direct physical attacks are the weakness of a mind-manipulator, isn't that right?"
This Ma Wangjun character.
Just as I'd been caught off guard earlier, he apparently intended to strike Lee Jina directly to turn the situation around.
So he hadn't reached A-rank, 16th place, on looks alone after all!
"Kwang-kwang, Myeong-i, you're up!"
━Hio-ong…!
━Mio-ong…!
The two spiders that had been hiding themselves around the island settled onto my shoulders, one on each side.
They immediately began to sing—hio-ong, mio-ong—and Kwang-kwangi even plucked away with her forelegs at a tiny guitar-like instrument spun from her own webbing. Ding-ding—ting.
"What are you doing right now?"
According to Ari, Ma Wangjun was a cunning, cowardly creature, weasel-like through and through.
The moment Myeong-i and Kwang-kwangi perched on my shoulders and began their duet, he tensed up and slipped into full defensive posture.
Vvvvmm—.
He hadn't forgotten to wrap himself in a telekinetic shield, either.
"Telekinesis is a delicate power. It's the power of controlling invisible hands, which is why only people with razor-sharp senses ever become telekinetics."
The fact that telekinetics tend to be prickly and high-strung was common knowledge, better established than any of the MBTI personality fads that had swept through a while back.
After all, they always seemed to need their nerves wound taut to operate that invisible, sixth-sense organ of theirs.
In other words—.
The defining trait of a telekinetic was hypersensitive senses.
━Hio-ong…!
━Mio-ong…!
And into those taut nerves, the dance, the song, and the instrumental performance of two spiders with sixteen legs between them would burrow like a spell of beguilement.
That was the spiders' secret technique, amplified through compatibility with my A-rank mana—.
"This is Illusion Art — Spider Chorus. Anyone caught in this technique suffers disruption to their synesthetic perception, making it very hard to use fine, delicate techniques. Pure brain-child of mine, but—."
Clatter-clatter—.
The guns floating in midair crashed to the ground.
Which meant Ma Wangjun's telekinesis had gone unstable.
"Looks like it works, all right."
"Haildo, you little—."
If this were Lee Jeonghun back in his S-rank days, he could have adjusted his coordinates with fine precision and kept his telekinesis running even through an attack like this. Ma Wangjun simply couldn't.
"Ma Wangjun, you're juggling a whole arsenal of abilities, but your mastery of them doesn't seem all that impressive? If it were Lee Jeonghun—even fallen to your A-ranker tier—he never would have fallen for that illusion just now."
Looked at one way, it was only obvious.
Every awakened person knows the drill: pick your one talent and hone it to a razor's edge.
And that was hard enough.
Trying to master multiple talents at once demanded exponentially more time and effort.
But Ma Wangjun, as far as I could see, had never been that kind of person.
This was a man who mocked honest effort and patience, and drifted between shortcuts, loopholes, and outright crime.
Discipline.
Hard work.
Had Ma Wangjun ever once walked through that tedious, punishing process?
"All those abilities you're juggling are clearly shortcuts too. Those rings of yours, I'd wager? They light up every single time you use a power. You gear-carrier hack!"
Whether my jab had hit a nerve or not, Ma Wangjun bristled.
"Look at this guy, lecturing everyone about fighting fair when he's out here fighting on the backs of animals—. Haildo, you insufferable little…! I've hated you since the day we first met…!"
Whoosh—.
Ma Wangjun clenched both fists tight.
"I'll show you why this island is called Hell Island!"