The Park's Heart-Wrenching Reality
"You two. Take good care of Yuna and Hana. If you fail, I won't let you off easy."
"Y-yes~ Yes! We'll take good care of them, so you just go already!"
Yoo Hwa-young said it jokingly, as if my words were a joke. Unfortunately for her, I wasn't kidding.
If Yoo Hwa-young failed to protect Yuna and Hana, I would kill her — even if it meant facing down the Celestials myself.
Those two were more precious to me than my own life. If she couldn't protect them, then even a useless life like hers would have to be taken. It wouldn't fully ease the pain — not even close — but it was the only way I could find even a sliver of relief.
Of course, Beatrice, far stronger than I, would be by their side. Still, worry was unavoidable.
"Cheon-seong-ah, be careful."
"Papa. Please come back safely..."
"Don't worry. I'll definitely come back."
I smiled and answered their concerns, but Yoo Hwa-young, standing beside them, couldn't resist poking at the obvious death flag.
"Hwa-ran-ah, isn't that a death flag right there?"
"Hwa... Hwa-young-ah, don't say things like that!"
"And seriously, is she doing this on purpose, or does she just have zero sense of tact?"
'At least say that kind of thing where I can't hear it.'
"Hey, something about what you're saying has changed, hasn't it?"
"I know what I'm doing. You tactless... you idiot."
This time, I'd just gotten annoyed and said the opposite of what I was thinking. Hana was listening, and Beatrice's gaze — sharp enough to feel every time a swear word slipped out — was behind me, so I softened the language. But the sentiment was genuine.
"Anyway, take good care of Yuna and Hana. If there's even a small scratch on either of them, I'll beat you to death for real."
With those words, I headed toward the location where the explosion had erupted — a place where two Upper-ranked individuals were present. Behind me, Yoo Hwa-young shouted, "That's too much!" but instead of answering, I responded via telepathy.
She hadn't asked me directly, but I knew Yoo Hwa-young suspected that the masked man from the auction house was me.
Despite her consistently idiotic — no, foolish — behavior, Yoo Hwa-young was still an unpolished gem with the talent to one day surpass human limits and become a Transcendent.
So even if she was a bit lacking and I found her a little troublesome, I could trust her to some extent... No. No, no matter how I thought about it, that wasn't right.
She was the kind of person who stood right on the boundary line between "idiot" and "genius." She wasn't truly an idiot, but she always acted like one, which is how everyone came to know her as an idiot. That was Yoo Hwa-young.
It'd be better to just leave my back to Gameerim than to trust her.
My past-life memories kept telling me not to trust Yoo Hwa-young. One famous incident from before my regression came to mind — before the war with the Celestials, when each country's academy selected five students to compete in Arcadia, the international tournament. Yoo Hwa-young, who had been selected, had caused a massive scandal.
It was so absurdly ridiculous that it was still mentioned occasionally even after the war with the Celestials had broken out.
That Yoo Hwa-young was a bit older than the current one, but the fact that she'd still do something like that even as she grew up meant one thing: Yoo Hwa-young was, and always would be, Yoo Hwa-young.
'That's her.'
As I recalled that moment and ran forward, I soon detected one of the two Upper-ranked individuals I'd been tracking.
He stood surrounded by burning, crumbling ruins, smiling as if waiting for something. I didn't bother checking whether he was an enemy — I just attacked.
If he was a villain, I'd deal with him quickly and head back. If not, well, that was his fault for being in a place like this.
Whoosh!
Still, he might be a kind-hearted madman, so I started simple — a fireball.
Boom!!
The fireball exploded, scattering scorching flames across the surroundings.
Whoosh
"Whoa! Isn't this welcome greeting a bit too intense?"
A man walked out through the flames, smiling, and charged at me.
I kicked off the ground and dodged. Where I'd been standing, a crater formed from the force of his punch.
"I'm so happy you came to find me yourself, Lee Cheon-seong!"
"Who the hell are you?"
Since he was Upper-ranked, I knew this much wouldn't hurt him, so I didn't question the lack of damage. But the fact that he knew my name was concerning.
"Aren't you a bit too prickly? I came all this way just to meet you!"
Boom!
The fierce wind pressure from his thrown fist flew toward me like a typhoon.
Wind pressure from a fist might seem weak, but if it came from an Upper-ranked individual, a gentle spring breeze became a cold, sharp gale.
Whoosh—!
I shot wind upward from below to block the gale.
As I blocked it, I got a slight sense of the man's power. Even that small amount was enough for me to know who he was.
There was only one organization in Korea capable of infiltrating the heavily secured Nuri Island and causing an explosion this large.
"Are you from Noah?"
Noah.
A villain organization that carried out terrorism across Korea and the world under the pretense of "salvation."
If that man wasn't a member of Noah, an Upper-ranked individual couldn't have entered Nuri Island so freely and caused this kind of chaos.
As if confirming my guess, the man spread his arms wide and said with a smile.
"Correct~! Whoa! This is even more fun than I heard! Actually, it's even more fun than what I heard..."
And if he was from Noah, I didn't need to think about the aftermath.
I compressed high-pressure water with blue mana and fired it at the rambling man.
Before my regression, I hadn't known whether I could absorb magic stones, so I had little mana and couldn't use high-power spells. This was my own water-attribute unique magic that I'd devised and used most often.
Vellice.
A magic I'd created after seeing water jets — high-pressure water that could precisely cut through hardened steel and diamonds like a laser.
Ping—!!
The fast-moving Vellice pierced through the man's shoulder.
"Whoa... this hurts a lot?"
His shoulder had been pierced through bone and nerve, yet he showed no reaction. It seemed he was accustomed to pain, just like me.
'...This is troublesome.'
Vellice contained tiny particles of a persistent magic stone mixed in, making the pain of being pierced far greater than expected. Even ordinary Upper-ranked individuals would feel it. If he was used to this level of pain, it meant he was immune to most ordinary pain.
In other words, he was a real pain to deal with.
As someone who had pain resistance, I knew how difficult it was to attack by cutting flesh and taking bone. It was the kind of attack that made you unable to strike carelessly or even approach carelessly — a type you'd definitely fall to if the skill gap wasn't at least two ranks.
Sizzle
Smoke rose from the wound pierced by Vellice.
That was the phenomenon that occurred when a healing ability with self-regeneration was activated.
"Whoa! This hurts more than I thought? But hey, do you have anything else besides this?"
"You're a lunatic."
"Puhahaha! That's right! I am pretty crazy! But this is too boring!"
"....Too boring?"
"Yeah! Make me hurt more!"
Oh. I see.
Now I understood exactly what kind of person this was.
This guy wasn't resistant to pain like me — he had congenital insensitivity to pain. He simply couldn't feel it.
His request to make him hurt felt like someone who couldn't feel pain but knew what it was in theory and wanted to experience it. That was my conclusion.
"Hey. You can't feel pain, right?"
"Huh? No way~. There's no such person. But... that's me! Of course I can't feel pain! Puhahaha!"
Smirk.
He laughed while playing with words, but I was smiling too.
The reason I didn't flinch even when bones broke and flesh burned wasn't because I couldn't feel pain. It was because before my regression, I had endured torture far worse than this without rest — so much so that I was used to this level of pain without even blinking.
But this guy was different. He wasn't accustomed to pain like me — he had congenital insensitivity to pain, so he only knew what pain was from reading about it.
Then what would happen if he felt pain for the first time?
Whoosh!
I closed the distance quickly and drove Blazing Storm straight into his abdomen.
"Kuh—!!"
He let out the sound of feeling real pain for the first time, engulfed in a storm of flames.
Of course, the first pain someone ever felt would inevitably feel greater than any other pain.
"Please! Please, someone help my kids!"
A child's mother shed desperate tears, looking toward the place where children had been caught in the explosion.
"Just wait a little longer. I'll definitely save them."
Shing!
Someone who heard the mother's plea swung their sword toward the area engulfed in flames from the explosion.
The flames parted, and the children who had collapsed on the ground were placed into the mother's tearful embrace.
"Ah... ah, my babies! My babies! Ugh... Thank goodness you're safe!"
"M... mom?"
"Don't cry... Mom's here... we're... okay."
The two children, who had lost consciousness from inhaling smoke, slowly opened their eyes and spoke at their mother's voice. Her tears flowed even more fiercely.
"Thank you... thank you so much... thank you so much..."
"I only did what anyone would do. What matters is that the children are safe. This place is dangerous, so please evacuate quickly."
After evacuating the mother and children, the woman made a phone call somewhere.
"I've received your call, Sword Princess."
"Director Kim. I'm at Nuri Island right now. There's a terrorist attack happening. From what I can see, it looks like Noah, so please send support quickly."
"...Noah? Understood. I'll request support from the nearest heroes near Nuri Island. So, Sword Princess? Support will be sent soon, so please don't act recklessly."
"I know that. And there are many injured, so I need healing specialists too—"
Boom!!!
A scorching heat wave surged and crashed over her.
A storm of flames erupted into the sky.
"Damn it... it looks like an Upper-ranked! I'll go hold them off, so please send support as fast as possible!"
Seeing that, Ryu Se-rin quickly ended the call with the association and ran toward where the storm had erupted.
"I really hope they come quickly..."
She had fought countless villains and heroes and seen many magics, but she had never seen one like this.
She'd seen magic that combined fire and wind, but this was a storm made entirely of flames.
Judging by its range and power, it was at least an Upper-ranked magic. If it kept firing, the surrounding damage would be severe, so it had to be dealt with quickly.
'There he is.'
Arriving at where the flame storm had erupted, Ryu Se-rin drew her sword toward the man standing at its center.
"!!!"
The man, realizing too late that Ryu Se-rin was approaching, hastily deployed a Protect barrier to block her sword, then kicked off the ground and pulled back to steady himself.
"...Why are you attacking me out of nowhere?"
The black-haired man who had blocked Ryu Se-rin's sword asked. She switched her grip on her sword and approached as she answered.
"You're carrying out a terrorist attack and asking why I'm attacking? Noah is still as shameless as ever."
Ryu Se-rin's sword moved as gracefully as a dance, pouring toward the man.
"There seems to be a misunderstanding. Noah isn't me — it's over there—"
"Do you think I'd believe that!"
The man dodged her attacks and tried to explain it was a misunderstanding, but Ryu Se-rin didn't believe him and continued her assault. Eventually, the man, realizing he couldn't keep dodging forever, blocked her sword and pushed her back to create distance.
"I really am not from Noah, Sword Princess."
"You know I'm the Sword Princess and you expect me to believe that—!"
Boom!
"Puhaha! Is this what pain feels like! It's so exhilarating!"
A man who had been engulfed in flames walked out from between the building rubble, steam pouring from his entire body.
"Huh? What's this? Se-rin? What are you doing here?"
"....Sion? Why are you here....?"
"Ah~ Nothing special. I just had business with that guy over there~."
Where Sion pointed was the man who had been pressing him just moments ago — the one who looked like a Noah member. At Sion's words, Ryu Se-rin asked in a disbelieving voice.
"You're telling me you were... carrying out a terrorist attack? No, more importantly, why are you, a hero, even—?"
"Why? Of course because I'm not a hero — I'm from Noah! Hahahaha! Did you really believe what I said?"
Ryu Se-rin stared blankly at Sion's words. Seeing her like that, Sion said she was still as naive as ever, struck a pose as if mocking her, and shouted loudly.
"Ta-da, surprise~!!"
Sion's voice shifted from a low register to a high one.
A man's voice suddenly changing into a woman's voice.
And Ryu Se-rin knew that voice very well.
A voice she couldn't forget even if she wanted to. A voice that appeared in her dreams every night and tormented her.
"You fell for it again, Se-rin?"
The owner of that voice — the voice that had tormented her in nightmares — spoke words that brought back those nightmares.
The true identity behind her hatred of Noah was Sion.