Chapter 40
Chapter 40
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 40
Chapter Title: Draw Your Sword
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# Chapter 40
"Mister, mister! Are you really okay? Oh my god, look at half your face."
Seo Woo-jin opened his closed eyes at the barrage of words pouring out like a shotgun blast.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
He had leveled up six times—there was no way he wouldn't be.
All the scars he'd accumulated from training in Massive Guardian had vanished without a trace.
"I was so worried! We went out to hunt goblins, and suddenly a Dark Elf shows up, radiating this terrifying aura. Then a hole rips open in the sky, and black jellyfish come pouring out..."
It was certainly a series of events no one could experience easily.
Amid all that, the fact that Lee Ji-ah and Kim Da-hye had returned without a single injury was nothing short of a miracle.
"If we hadn't trained with you, mister, we would've been in real trouble."
The Dark Elf had been strong.
Individually, neither of them was a match for her, but as their numbers surpassed ten and approached twenty, they had even felt their lives were in danger.
Yet the two had held out until the end.
Just as she said, the training with Seo Woo-jin had made a huge difference.
If it had been other heroes, they probably would've panicked and gotten wiped out.
"That's a relief."
She was an uninvited guest interrupting his long-overdue rest, but Seo Woo-jin didn't mind much.
If anything, the cheerful chatter beside him felt endearing.
'This is what it means to be alive.'
Seo Woo-jin smiled.
Gerald had been terrifyingly strong.
Even the elite heroes who prided themselves as the best among them hadn't been able to mount a proper resistance before nearly getting crushed to death.
Even Seo Woo-jin's trump card, 'Abyss,' had only bought him a brief moment.
If just a little more time had passed.
And if Dariel hadn't arrived at the perfect timing.
Seo Woo-jin would have died right there.
Thinking back, he could only say it was sheer luck.
"But did you see that old man? Something about Sword Sage, I think."
'It was the Sword Sage.'
Seo Woo-jin let out a hollow chuckle and nodded.
"They said he was super strong. He took down that slimy guy all by himself—what kind of monster does it take to do that?"
"Slimy guy?"
Seo Woo-jin tilted his head at the unfamiliar nickname.
"Oh, Baek Si-woo. He's all slimy-looking, right?"
To think that handsome face earned him such a label.
He was starting to worry about Lee Ji-ah's eyesight.
"One of the strongest people in this world, they say."
Sword Sage Dariel was a powerhouse who ranked in the top ten, no matter how conservatively you estimated.
Even Half Slane paled in comparison, or so they said...
He couldn't even imagine how strong that made him.
"Even someone that strong couldn't beat the Demon King?"
Seo Woo-jin fell silent at Lee Ji-ah's question.
In a world with powerhouses like that, they still couldn't defeat the Demon King and had to call for aid from another dimension.
Just how strong was the Demon King?
And what about himself, whose class was 'Demon King'?
It was a question he'd pondered dozens, hundreds of times already.
Though he'd never once found an answer.
"Well, insanely strong, I guess."
Even a monster like Gerald was just a mere follower, not even a direct subordinate of the Demon King.
It was clear that mere words like "strong" wouldn't suffice.
"Can we win?"
He couldn't answer this question right away either.
Of course, he didn't think they would lose.
They had held the line so far despite the heavy losses, and this time they had a full hundred heroes.
If they kept growing steadily for a year, two years like this.
Victory in the Great Descent War was assured.
And yet, Seo Woo-jin held back his words.
'I don't know.'
Even as he thought they could win, a sliver of unease lingered in his heart.
It wasn't just because of his class, either.
There was something else nagging at him.
He didn't know exactly what it was yet.
"We'll win."
Ailin answered in his place.
She had been quietly listening to the conversation from the side, her expression full of conviction.
She didn't entertain the thought of defeat in the Great Descent War for even a moment.
Seo Woo-jin smirked at Ailin's demeanor.
'Typical Massive Guardian alum.'
Defeat didn't exist for them.
In Massive Guardian, defeat meant death.
It was the pride of those who staked their lives against monsters every year.
"Yeah, we'll win."
Seo Woo-jin agreed with Ailin.
It was best not to bring up topics that might sour the mood.
"Right? I thought so too."
Lee Ji-ah grinned and started chattering excitedly again.
If someone hadn't entered the room just then, she would've kept talking until they departed for the capital.
"You seem to have recovered."
Sword Sage Dariel had returned.
* * *
"What about the injured heroes?"
Agna asked.
"We just started transporting them to the capital."
"And their conditions?"
"Fortunately, no one lost their lives."
Agna let out a sigh of relief at his subordinate's report.
"Now just to finish organizing these documents."
Agna waved the subordinate away and began reviewing the papers with weary eyes.
"Gerald..."
They had fortunately resolved the incident without major casualties.
For the appearance of an outlandish monster like Gerald, it was a remarkably clean wrap-up.
"There were many injuries, but not a single death."
Considering Gerald's power and nature, it wouldn't have been strange if every hero and knight had been slaughtered.
This outcome was a blessing, but neither Pierre nor anyone else took the incident lightly.
"Crusiel has a hole in it."
This was no simple matter.
Crusiel was an umbrella.
One that shielded the Empire from all the filthy rain pouring down.
Of course, it was impossible to block every single drop.
But the drop that splashed through this time was a big one.
Big enough to threaten the world's very survival if mishandled.
Failing to detect and prepare for something like this in advance was a major problem.
It wasn't something to brush off just because it ended well.
'Where did it go wrong?'
Agna furrowed his brow.
The people in Crusiel weren't lacking in ability.
It was an organization he had nurtured with utmost care.
This wasn't some other kingdom—this happened within the Empire's borders, and there was no way they wouldn't have noticed beforehand.
That left only one possibility.
'Information leak.'
Someone had deliberately withheld information.
Who? Why? Those questions weren't even necessary.
He already knew the answers.
"Seems like some filthy rats have snuck in."
Unable to bear the frustration, Agna pulled a cigarette from his drawer.
Snap—
He flicked his finger, lighting it.
"Hoo."
Thick cigarette smoke began filling the office.
"We fed them the bait and they took it, yet they're still hiding."
Where did the Demon King's followers keep coming from endlessly?
Agna couldn't comprehend it.
If the Demon King descended and won, nothing but ruin awaited.
"If they're so eager to die, they might as well hang themselves and save everyone the trouble."
What an utter nuisance.
"Hooo—"
Having smoked the entire cigarette, Agna stubbed out the butt and turned back to the documents.
Hunting the rats was important, but the papers in front of him needed immediate attention.
They were critical compilations of field reports.
The knights' testimonies were all jumbled, eroded by Demonic Energy as they were.
But there were common threads.
"A hole?"
The descriptions varied, but they all pointed to the same thing.
A hole had torn open in the sky, and something black had descended from it.
This matched the accounts from the heroes who had kept their sanity.
Their survival was thanks to it, they said—the stories aligned.
"Now that I think about it, that old man mentioned seeing something like this before."
Agna recalled Dariel and scowled.
What exactly was this "hole"?
And who had created it?
His fingers drummed on the desk.
"Not enough information."
He couldn't draw any conclusions from this alone.
At first, he wondered if it was some hero's skill, but none had used anything like it.
According to Dariel, the hole had emanated an energy similar to Demonic Energy.
No hero would wield a skill like that, so another entity had clearly intervened.
'The problem is we don't know who.'
Lack of information, lack of information...
In his thirty years as head of the secret intelligence agency Crusiel, Agna had never faced such an opaque wall.
It felt like walking a fog-shrouded path.
With a sigh, Agna scanned the documents and twitched an eyebrow at a familiar name.
"Seo Woo-jin?"
He was the one Agna had deemed unworthy of attention and classified as a '9th-grade monitoring target.'
But the report stated something different.
"He endured Demonic Energy?"
Coming directly from Dariel, no less—it had to be reliable.
Agna pondered.
Those who could withstand Demonic Energy fell into one of two categories.
"Either overwhelmingly strong, or one of their own kind."
There was no way Seo Woo-jin, a '9th-grade monitoring target,' was strong enough...
"One of their own?"
Agna shook his head.
Seo Woo-jin was a hero.
One they had summoned themselves—no way he was tied to the Demon King.
"A hero who endured Demonic Energy without divine protection."
Possible in the future, perhaps.
But not now. Absolutely not.
Agna drummed his fingers on the desk, repeating the name, then stood and retrieved Seo Woo-jin's file from the corner.
He stamped it once more.
It was the same large stamp as before, but the content differed.
[5th-grade monitoring target.]
Not major attention yet.
Just mild curiosity, figuring he had some special skill.
But it was true that Agna and Crusiel had begun watching Seo Woo-jin a bit more closely.
Though it was attention he wouldn't welcome.
* * *
"Come outside."
Seo Woo-jin was dumbfounded by Dariel's abrupt command.
"Suddenly?"
"I need to check something."
Dariel paid no heed to Seo Woo-jin's reaction, barreling ahead regardless.
Seo Woo-jin, who had a slight guilty conscience, naturally wanted to refuse.
But he had no choice to begin with.
As Seo Woo-jin hesitated, Dariel simply hoisted him over his shoulder and marched out.
"H-Hey? What are you doing?!"
Seo Woo-jin resisted, of course.
But it was pointless.
Ignoring him, Dariel walked a good distance before finally stopping and setting him down.
"No, this is ridiculous..."
About to snap, Seo Woo-jin sensed something flying toward him and clamped his mouth shut.
'A sword?'
It was a black sword.
Only then did Seo Woo-jin look around and realize where he was.
"The training grounds?"
Why bring him here?
And why give him the sword?
As Seo Woo-jin stared at Dariel with eyes full of questions, the man spoke.
"Draw your sword."