Here to Rescue You!
Cheon Mari wore an incredibly proud expression before finally turning to look at Kang Sian.
"Most people in the world."
It sounded like the kind of casual joke a woman might make when being compared to criminals, but coming from Cheon Mari, it somehow felt completely sincere on multiple levels. Whether she understood that ambiguity or not, Mari smiled at the other party's reaction before her eyes suddenly sparkled as if she'd remembered something.
She tapped her finger against her head and spoke casually.
"Huh?"
Her ego was so massive it practically overflowed. It was technically true, but the fact that she could say it so boldly was somewhat problematic. Kang Sian stared at the narcissist's face and grimaced. His expression openly showed disgust, but she paid it no mind.
"That's some bullshit."
He was genuinely impressed by her terrifying confidence and shamelessness. Kang Sian let out a sigh and lightly punched her hip and butt. Cheon Mari burst into a laugh that sounded almost like a moan, as if it tickled. Bold as ever, the scene was reflected for everyone else to see.
Shannon, who now seemed used to it and merely trembled, and the porter girl who turned her eyes away as if witnessing something obscene. And then there was the scheduled TS VTuber, the Sword Expert, who seemed to have read the room and continued resisting with an extremely pathetic expression.
Watching this, Cheon Mari felt a strange sense of satisfaction and raised an eyebrow. On the other hand, Kang Sian subtly stepped back, feeling like he was being lumped together with the rest of them.
And so the Sword Expert was thrown into hell. Cheon Mari's merciless beating landed on him, and stomps beyond imagination hammered his entire body. The pain was so intense it caused convulsions, and he stopped all resistance.
"Ughhh..."
It looked less like he'd stopped and more like he'd passed out, but it didn't really matter. Either way, they'd successfully subdued him.
The Sword Expert was stuffed into a water ball created by Shannon, with only his head barely sticking out. It should have spilled out, but her magic had enough cohesion to hold it together.
At Shannon's gesture, the water ball containing the Sword Expert floated into the sky. Now they could take him without the hassle of carrying him.
After Kang Sian dragged out the woman hiding in the corner, the building was empty. They headed toward the place where they'd shared seolleongtang while being pelted by an annoyingly persistent drizzle.
A High Sword Expert. For an academy cadet, it was quite the catch, but that was precisely why it was a problem.
What Kang Sian needed right now was third place. He had no interest in suspicious equipment like a Pursuit set or anything of the sort.
He nodded. Shannon recalled the chaos that had just unfolded inside the building and opened her mouth. It had been short, but excessively intense and downright destructive. The level of violence was something you'd never see even in a dungeon—enough to make anyone feel fear.
On the other hand, it also served as a preview of what fights between people on the level of High Hunters looked like. If a hunter-turned professor had been here, they probably would have told them to watch carefully because this was the future they were heading toward.
In a way, she was right. So much so that even the porter girl, who had been keeping her distance, noticed and cautiously approached.
She raised her hand and mimicked running upward, then twisted it a few times as if depicting a spinning motion. After that, she slammed her hand down like driving it into the ground and even added a "boom" sound effect with her mouth. She was worried about the attack Kang Sian had shown against the Sword Expert.
Technically speaking, a technique should have some degree of established form. However, the attack Kang Sian had shown was closer to something he'd just improvised on the spot. After getting sent flying to the second floor by Cheon Mari's attack, he'd flown up to launch a near-ambush, then used magic the moment he slammed down to pin the guy properly. Naturally, there hadn't been a single calculated element to it. Like most dogfights, it was just reacting to whatever he saw.
First? Group first? The porter girl stared blankly at Kang Sian.
Three firsts? Out of fifty thousand people, only a few hundred could be first—and there were three of them? For real? How?
Cheon Mari's utterly confident statement somehow lent credibility to her baseless claim. It wasn't the words of someone trying to deceive others, but the relaxed speech of someone who had room to spare. In the end, a chaotic chemical reaction occurred inside the porter girl's brain.
The informal speech she'd been using and her behavior of reading the room in a negative way finally caught up to her. She felt both embarrassed and terrified. Soon, as if lagging, she kept repeating the first syllable endlessly while bowing her head.
"?"
Kang Sian couldn't understand the sudden apology. He never dreamed that the porter girl, who tended to be quite brazen, would apologize like this. Of course, for her, it had taken tremendous courage to say it.
Among porters, there was a saying that bowing your head made you a pushover. For her to abandon that meant she viewed the current situation as extremely serious. No, it was less serious and more like she was worried she might actually die.
But Kang Sian couldn't quite grasp it. He simply thought she was joking a bit about the first place thing. The others reacted the same way. They just thought it was that kind of reaction and let it slide.
"Huh?"
And so the porter girl fell even deeper into a sense of alienation. What widened that gap further was what happened the moment they arrived at their destination.
It was a model demonstration of traditional culture through traditional food. The hero candidate who had acted as their guide also experienced it and left glowing praise. The K-traditional culture that moved even a foreigner to tears. And this wasn't even an ordinary foreigner.
"Dechaat!"
A High Sword Expert on par with a mid-to-high Hunter. Though he possessed a strong body, his palate and sensibilities weren't quite as tough, and he continued showing a fragile side. And such genuine vulnerability naturally evoked sympathy in those watching.
How touching must it have been for Shannon to repeatedly dunk him in the water ball for two minutes and twenty-two seconds?
It was truly a beautiful scene. Afterward, the Sword Expert, having learned the characteristics of multiculturalism through his taste buds, began spilling the information Kang Sian demanded.
Of course, he didn't tell the truth. The information Kang Sian had asked for was the location of the dungeon gate. What he actually gave was the location of a base where the knights took short breaks. In other words, just like the guide girl, he was desperately grasping at straws for survival, for rescue, and for the spread of traditional culture.
Unfortunately, Kang Sian wasn't foolish enough to miss those intentions. The distorted location was exactly the information he was truly after. Since they'd caught Chunsik, next was Daesik's turn. And so, praising the Sword Expert's remarkable courage, he headed quickly to the location with Shannon.
As soon as they entered, they saw a knight inspecting his armor. Two branches were engraved on his armband.
Easily enough indeed. The Mid Sword Expert was subdued in less than a minute. Without even putting up proper resistance. Getting thoroughly beaten by someone much younger than him. Without managing to cast a single proper spell. Tied up tightly with rope.
He was practically not even worth fighting. He was dragged off to the prospective VTuber assembly point in utter futility. The Mid Sword Expert went through the door first. The eyes of the previously captured hero candidate and knight widened.
It was a sad reality. And thinking about their future made it even sadder.