This Should Be Interesting

Jan — the Shadow Ghost, also called the Shadow Hunter — found himself more than a little thrown, for the first time in a long while.

What the hell is this guy doing?

The foundation of being a hunter was reading your mark from a distance with eyes sharper than anyone else's. Jan had been born with that gift, which was why House Esteber had chosen him as their hunter — and why he now stood watch as the keeper of this gate.

In all my years, I have never seen anyone this sloppy.

He would grant the man this much: whether the bastard had swallowed something miraculous as a child or not, that raw physical talent and the unidentifiable energy coiled inside him were the real article. Jan would not deny it. But that was as far as the credit went. There was not a shred of polish or seasoned instinct coming off the man. By every rule Jan knew, those arrows should have been undodgeable.

A hiss of air, then a hard, wet thunk.

"......"

First arrow. Second. Third.

Watching Rune tear across the course in a wild, chaotic sprint and eat half the distance in a heartbeat, Jan had no choice but to concede.

The movement is sloppy as hell. But damn. He's something else.

This, however, would be the end of it. The reason no one had ever cleared the first gate on Hardcore difficulty was brutally simple: you had to catch every shaft from an overwhelmingly superior archer while simultaneously dodging every trap laid through the course.

The bowstring creaked as Jan drew it to his cheek, and the deaths of famous adventurers flickered through his mind. More than ten of them had been fed to this difficulty as test subjects. Every last one had died. There was no world in which a sloppy amateur like that walked out the other side.

The second he hits a trap, I'll put him down clean. No suffering—

Jan had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠already started offering the man a silent prayer when his brain simply stopped.

The idiot who had not even glanced at the ground jumped as if he had known the trap was coming. And that was not all. He read the delayed roll of the boulders with perfect timing and drove forward at a speed that made Jan's eyes narrow.

"Well, I'll be damned..."

Jan quietly lowered his bow. This was a perfect clear. Even the head of House Esteber would not be able to deny it.

"You miserable bastards — I finally beat it!"

Hard not to be happy about that. Jan gave a small nod and settled himself against a tree.

I could not not roar.

I had lost count of how many times an arrow had punched through the center of my forehead clearing this godforsaken first gate. At this point the damn thing was going to start showing up in my nightmares.

"Hah."

I snapped back to cold reality soon enough. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I had only cleared the first gate. If the first one was this vicious, I could not even begin to imagine how many times I would have to die at the second.

Every time the deaths flickered back through my head, my breath caught in my throat. This was the kind of thing you never got used to.

Doesn't seem to work the other way around, though.

I was already starting to forget the faces of the ones I had killed dozens of times over in Chapter One of the Tutorial. It was a fresh, ugly reminder of just how selfish a creature a human being really was. You never forget your own death. Other people's deaths, though — those you get used to just fine. Forgetting them is not even hard.

Not that I could do anything about it. That was just the kind of human I was.

"What's the next gate?"

"I honestly didn't think you'd clear the first one."

Do you have any idea how many times I died to beat that thing? Of course I was going to clear it. Still, the shock on Oliver's face was not the worst feeling in the world. The best part, naturally, was Suhui's bright smile and the way she clapped for me.

"Oppa! That was amazing!"

Clown, acrobat, whatever. As long as my little sister was smiling, I would take it.

While I caught my breath and took a short rest, Oliver pulled the lever in the corner the same way he had before. The walls that had been tormenting me vanished without a trace, and this time a line of wooden dolls rose in their place.

"You've proven you can dodge. Now it's time to test your offense."

I understood from the hint alone. Smash the dolls. Simple enough.

"I know your physical abilities aren't exactly ordinary, and you've got a fair amount of mana in that body of yours. But you'd do well not to take this lightly."

"I never have."

If anything, it was so hard it was giving me a headache. This difficulty sat somewhere well outside common sense. I was in a hurry, and every quest burned this much time and mental stamina — when was I ever going to get strong enough to even approach my goal?

"Those wooden dolls are made of Demonic Wood. They've absorbed Demonic Energy until they're incomparably harder than ordinary timber. Your average swordsman couldn't cut through them."

"So you're telling me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to just go die?"

"Let me finish."

I shut my mouth. Repeated death had apparently sanded my nerves down to a raw edge.

"Each of those dolls has a small red mark carved into it. The location is different on every one. Strike that mark precisely, and even a child could shatter Demonic Wood."

"Hmm. So do I get time to look them over? And if not — how long is the test itself?"

Oliver answered without hesitation.

"Thirty seconds."

A hollow laugh slipped out of me. There were five of those things. I did not know where a single weak point was. And I was supposed to cut them all down in one pass?

"So it really was 'go die.'"

"......"

This time Oliver did not push back. He simply rested a hand on the scabbard at his hip. Even if I refused here, he would kill me. And unlike before, if I failed the test, he would take my head with his own hands.

"We've prepared every type of weapon. Pick whatever you like."

"A little disappointing for a final farewell."

I grabbed a single sharp, pointed dagger off the rack.

A faint pity surfaced on Oliver's face as he watched me. Come to think of it, all the trial and error getting through the first gate had nudged Oliver and Jan's affinity up a notch.

"Don't waste your sympathy."

I smirked and walked past him. I had already confirmed via system message that nobody who worked for House Esteber was right in the head. But to me, these lunatic murderers felt a lot more normal than most people I knew.

These guys actually respect someone who puts in the work.

The people around me in the modern world — Song Yura included — had never acknowledged a scrap of my effort. All they had ever done was look for a way to tear me down.

"Beginning now."

The words were barely out of my mouth before I kicked off the ground. Thirty seconds was an absurdly short window. Stare at a microwave for half a breath and the damn thing was already beeping.

I have to check all of them. No exceptions.

My current save point was not the second gate. It was the first. Which meant every time I died, I started over from that bloodbath of a race.

Running it again would help me practice, sure. The time waste was far worse. So I had to keep deaths to an absolute minimum.

Between the eyes. Throat. Crown of the head. A man's groin... and last, the ankle.

The moment I finished locating every red mark and turned my head, Oliver was staring at me with a face full of betrayal.

"...What the hell do you think you're doing?"

All that affinity I had built up, gone in a single stroke. Should have just never gone up in the first place. Now I only felt worse.

I understood how Oliver felt, though. A guy he had taken a liking to had breezed through the first gate, so of course he had gotten his hopes up for the second. That only worked if you did not know I came back from the dead.

I'm disappointed too, you know.

It was only natural he would not understand dying and coming back. And yet I was disappointed anyway.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't look at me like that."

Before Oliver could close the distance, I drove the dagger I had picked up straight into my own heart.

"Ghk — khack...!"

I thought it would kill me instantly. Turns out I was tougher than I expected, and it hurt like hell. Even as my vision blurred, I burned the locations of those marks into my mind, repeating them dozens of times over.

And then... the memory locked in.

I was not sure how much time had passed.

I had reached the point where I could smash four of the wooden dolls with the two daggers I had carefully chosen when Karina let me know it was time to go to university.

"...Good enough. I'm heading back."

Not completing the quest — and missing the level-up that came with it — stung more than I wanted to admit. But this quest had driven something into my bones: stats were not everything.

And just how badly I fail at using the abilities I already have.

On top of that, there was the fifth wooden doll. I had realized I would never destroy it with my current method. I would need to learn an entirely new technique. That would take time, and heading back to the modern world for a bit to take stock was not a bad call.

"Hah."

Back in my familiar studio apartment in an instant, I slumped against the wall.

"...The line between life and death keeps getting blurrier."

My mental energy was pretty well spent. My head felt fogged over. I was getting the dangerous feeling that if I died right here, I might just wake up in this apartment all over again.

"I should shower. Clear my head even a little."

Cold water roared down over me. I washed myself off like it was nothing and looked at the man in the mirror. Stat-wise, nothing had changed. The atmosphere coming off him, though, belonged to a completely different person.

Coming straight back from death had something to do with it, sure. More than that, I had been grinding techniques like my life depended on it. Because it had.

Without Demonic Energy, my brain would have melted a long time ago.

The wooden dolls were one thing, but Jan still had variables. Memorizing every last one of those while calculating the timing on traps that made your blood run cold was no easy feat. The price of failure was death.

The second gate in particular — destroying wooden dolls with marked weak points — was training designed to turn you into a killer. A test built for murder. It made sense. Every weak point on those ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dolls sat on a human vital spot. They had even designated a place that, as a fellow man, I felt bad aiming for. Another reminder that House Esteber was completely unhinged.

"I didn't kill a single person this time, and I can still smell blood on my hands."

Probably because I had realized that if I felt like it, I could kill people far more easily than before.

"Not even a little."

"Karina. What's eating me right now isn't being scared of killing people. I graduated from that a long time ago."

It was the opposite, actually. What was eating me was the fact that, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was looking forward to it. Getting stronger and stronger, until nobody on earth could stop me.

The age of the Awakened was coming. When that day arrived, how freely would I be able to dispose of the trash that got on my nerves — the parasites rotting this world from the inside?

"Unlike Suhui, I've got a warped set of values and beliefs."

A normal, decent person would look at a criminal and still see a chance at rehabilitation. They would show mercy. They would help rebuild a future, start to finish. That was not me. I had no desire to show people like that any mercy, and I sure as hell did not want to spend my time building them a future.

People don't change easily.

That thought was buried deep. If it came down to it, I would kill every last human I judged to be trash. Without a shred of emotion. And I did not particularly see that as a problem.

"If you want to stop the me of that future, just be stronger than I am."

I had already made up my mind to cling to my values even if the entire world rejected them. Not even Han Suhui would be able to break that stubbornness. So the only way to stop me would be to kill me with a power greater than my own.

"Not that I plan on dying easy."

I finished the shower in no time, skipped every morning lecture, and eyed the one afternoon class I had left as I stepped out of the bathroom. Introduction to Mechanical Engineering — a required course for anyone in the department. Today, there were two people I needed to meet in that lecture.

"This should be interesting."

Without realizing it, I clenched and unclenched my fist as I left the house.