Demon Realm (4)

Environment mattered a great deal to an athlete. Home advantage, host-nation advantage—those phrases existed for a reason, and no one taught you how to adapt to strange ground on the road for the fun of it. It mattered all the more to someone like me, used to nothing but one-on-one on a narrow path.

I still wasn't good at fighting several opponents by myself. So I made an environment where I could fight them one at a time. The room to move had shrunk, yes, but that weighed far more heavily on them, with their bulk and their numbers. To me it hardly felt narrow at all. A piste was only two meters wide, and for the sake of a tense bout it gave you no space to circle. A narrow road where all you could do was block, or dodge by a hair's breadth. I was a swordsman who had stood at the end of that road.

"Hoo. Ha."

I dropped the orcs without much trouble and wiped away the sweat. Then I looked up at the demons that had been watching me from atop a rock pillar since earlier.

A specimen of higher rank than I was, stuck at D−. It stood more than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a head taller than the orcs—two and a half meters, by the look of it—and a crown of horns rose from its skull. The thing was staring straight at me.

With the status-window message, the space in front of me warped like a heat haze. The demon's red mouth tore into a long grin.

In the next instant I launched in, estoc leading.

BOOOOM!

A majestic blast roared at my back. Fierce heat and a shockwave slammed into me and lifted my body clear of the ground for a moment. That was a demon's power. At the training institute they had taught us that the monsters pouring from the gates fell into two broad kinds: magic beasts, with abnormal bodies, and demons, with abnormal supernatural power. Demons were made entirely of elements, and they could command those elements. An earth demon could wring the bones out of a person with a look alone. A Flame Demon could raise an explosion with a look alone. Anyone who was not an Awakened, carrying mana in their own right, would die the moment that gaze landed.

I, of course, was an Awakened who could stand against them. At the very least I was not about to be blown into the lava lake, and that fact sat pleasantly in my chest. I kicked up in midair and found my balance.

Tap-tap-tap! I struck one of the stone pillars laid like stepping stones across the lava, spun wide, and bled the impact off. Then I leapt hard for the demon.

The moment I stuck to it, the demon drew its claws. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Those nails, heated red as lava, had grown more than a few dozen centimeters and shone like five short swords. It crossed them and dropped low, as if to charge.

That, too, was a feint.

FWOOOSH!

The demon vomited a pillar of fire more than ten meters long. If I hadn't wrenched my whole body aside with a balestra, I might have burned to death. Even so my tactical suit melted, and the skin beneath cooked an angry red. Through the pain a quiet smile found me. First, this thing really was a monster worthy of the name demon. Second, against the Amber Demon Dragon I had truly thought I would burn alive—but now I could endure this much. Pride that I had grown stronger, and relief that my opponent was strong, carried the blade as I kept swinging.

Nine thrusts in a single breath. A combination I had landed at the institute, and was using in a real fight for the first time.

Thuk! Thuk! Thuk!

One, two, three—I ran the point through its eye, the space between its brows, the philtrum. Four, five, six—shoulder, heart, and lung could not be left out. Seven, eight, nine—solar plexus, belly, and thigh would have been offended to be forgotten. If you don't know where the weak point is, you simply stab all of it.

"— —, — —!?"

The demon's body, all two and a half meters of it, reeled hard. Flame and lava poured from the nine holes torn through it. But a demon might be a thing with no weak points at all.

FWOOOSH!

With the sound of fire catching, a pure white light flashed inside its body, and an instant later every wound had healed.

"Insolent thief!"

It wore a thin, mocking smile, as if to ask what I thought of that.

"Magnificent."

I lifted my head and answered. Not bluster. I meant it. This, too, was exactly as I had been taught. Demons were elemental creatures of mana; they could be depleted, but they could not be wounded. At the same rank a magic beast was stronger, and that was precisely why a demon was far more dangerous. No matter how tired or torn, so long as its will remained it could fight to the very end. What a magnificent thing. I wanted power like that. And now I knew how to get it.

I took the steps and drove in on the demon.

Shhk! Shhhk!

It swept an arm in a great arc and came at me. Five blazing orange afterimages unfurled and wavered like pinwheels of fire. One clean hit from that grip would be fatal. So I simply wouldn't be hit even once.

I beat aside the claws seeking my right side and thrust into the chest.

Thuk!

The claws hunting my left, and the ones that shot up from below in what looked like panic—I knocked those away just as easily and answered them.

"You insolent monster!"

It had talent it was born with. I had talent I had built.

"— —, —!?"

The Flame Demon's eyes flew wide, as if it couldn't believe what it was seeing.

"Insane, insane? What the hell? What is that bastard doing?"

"He's dodging all of that?"

"Did he awaken Neural Acceleration on top of everything else? You sure he took the same awakening agent we did?"

Behind me the rookie hunters spilled words, plainly shocked. This was movement only someone systematically trained in a modern martial art could show. The rest of them wouldn't have known it, but the ancient sword arts were simpler than you'd think. There was a plain knack: mark three points on the sole in a triangle, settle your weight at the center as you step, and a downward cut carries more force. Not some junk trick invented by a mad old man of a dubious school—a secret of a prestigious Japanese sword lineage, handed down for hundreds of years. Anyone who didn't know it braced only hard enough to stop an ordinary cut and died where they stood, which is why it never spread. Such things were possible only because swordsmanship was a killing art.

Then an age of peace came, and the sword became a sport. Protective gear appeared, exchange between schools grew easy, and techniques that in ancient times would have passed for ultimate arts multiplied past counting. Push on into modern fencing, where a high-speed camera breaks your movement and your opponent's down to the frame, and the whole thing becomes a contest of memory and reaction speed.

"— —!"

Krrk! Skrrk!

"— —, — —!"

Skrrrrk!

Bigger than me, faster than me—and still its movement was far too honest. So long as my body could follow those motions with my eyes, I could come through without taking a single blow. I wore the thing down with great diligence.

"I can keep dodging. How long can you keep healing?"

Its essence might not have been biological, but the flesh still did a body's work. I hunted the parts it could not do without for attack, defense, and movement—the eyes, the shoulders, the thighs.

Pung! Pung! Pung!

White flame rose again and again inside its body.

"Minions! Soldiers!"

It shouted as if horrified.

"Kieeeek!"

"Krrrrrk!"

Flame bats came winging up against the sky. They meant to put that vast number in front and tear me apart. I wasn't worried about that side.

"Hyung-nim! Don't you worry, sir!"

Rat-tat-tat-tat!

Lee Hae-il emptied a submachine-gun magazine in a single burst. Swordplay, marksmanship, healing, theory—she had become a well-rounded rookie, solid on every face of the hexagon.

"Krrrk..."

The bats screamed and fell into the lava lake. Left to itself, the Flame Demon might have unleashed an explosive attack.

Thuk! Thuk! Thuk!

"— —, — —!"

But if I were facing someone who could still call on an authority like that while a blade was punching into their eyeball every other second, I would be perfectly happy to call the match and give myself the loss.

Fssst!

How many attacks had that been? Its shoulder failed to heal and scattered as ash.

"To a mere thief!?"

It gave ground in startled little steps, fear all over it, bewilderment that it could not believe the situation. I soaked in that pleasant upset myself. A demon that raised explosions, swung claws of flame, and healed its wounds on the spot—and I had driven an opponent that mighty this far. The pride of it was almost too much.

"Ha!"

I opened the flèche and leapt like a single shaft.

CRACK!

The estoc Hunter Ji In-hwi had made for me shattered the demon's rocky carapace and drove in. I kept going and broke through its body with my own. Lava and flame poured and spat in every direction. Only then did I see ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it—the pale flame burning quietly at the demon's heart. That was the demon's essence. When even that scattered from the point of my blade, the same rapture I had felt in the tutorial welled up.

"Hoo. Ha."

I caught my breath, elated.

At that moment something huge flickered through the passage on the far side of the cavity.

"..."

By feel, a monster on par with the Amber Demon Dragon. So they had a watcher over there as well. Or a superior.

"You all right?"

I went back to Lee Hae-il.

"Course I'm fine, sir. Would the greatest genius broadcaster in history, the one who'd even mock the gods, be anything else?"

She came out from between the rocks, grinning. The only magic beasts left alive in the cavity were a few flame bats hiding in the corners. I could fairly say we had finished well.

"Ghk— ghkk!"

"It hurts! I said it hurts!"

Lee Hae-il and I were all right. There had been four demons, and they had each taken one of our four groups. Me and Lee Hae-il. Jeong Ho-min and the Scorpion Crew pack. The other rehabilitation rookies. And the hunters who had already fallen into a panic. Every group had met a demon and fought. I had ended it with little worse than scraped skin. Among Jeong Ho-min and the Scorpion Crew, one was dead. Among the other rehabilitation group, one was dead. In the panicked hunters' group, only one had survived.

"AAAAAGH!"

He had been doing nothing but scream for a while now. Looking at him, I wasn't sure you could even call that living.

"You worked hard."

I looked at Lee Hae-il and smiled wryly.

"Let's go."

"Yes."

Whoooosh!

The rock that had dammed the river of lava earlier must have melted through. The water, risen high, dropped back to where it had been, and between the melted stones crystals came into view, glowing softly. Magic stones.

"Hyung-nim! Take a look at that, sir!"

"Pretty."

"If I just had a camera, this would be must-stream material, no question! I'm losing my mind wanting to film it, sir!"

I couldn't believe this was the first day. I was starting to see why they paid so much. I was also starting to see how this guild—how the Korea of today, to be precise—treated its low-rank hunters. Die in droves if you must, so long as the magic stones come up. So long as society stays safe, that is enough. I thought of the professional offense-takers who had gone pale at an athlete's blade, and of the people who, to smother a controversy in election season, had given me ten years "in consideration of the public mood." Then and now, in their eyes, we were consumables.

But I had to become an executive of Saetbyeol and meet Chae-ha again with my head held high. I had to take back everything I had lost then. To do that I had to rise inside Saetbyeol, and to do that I had to carve out my place in this Demon Realm. And for that, I had to leave a very deep impression on the team leaders already here—an impact on the order of the one I had made on my first day in the club, when I beat the coach fifteen to nothing and closed it out as a mercy.

Tok. Tok.

"I believe I said I wouldn't open this until you had taken every last one."

"Yes. We took them all."

"What did you say?"

Thinking those thoughts, I knocked on the rock wall.

"What?"

An unseen force brought the whole wall down. Besides Choi Jong-hyeok, Yeo Baek—the one I had seen earlier—was there as well. All the better. She was a B+ in her own right; even Choi Jong-hyeok would have to mind himself at least a little.

"It was quite enjoyable."

I smiled brightly, half from the heart and half for the show of it.

"How did you finish so quickly?"

Choi Jong-hyeok asked, one brow lifting.

"I..."

I told him how I had swept the orcs away with the lava.

"...And farther in, I saw a C-rank demon. If you'll permit it, I would like to try hunting it."

And with that, I played my winning card.