099. Perfect Timing (2)
099. Perfect Timing (2)
I stared up at the hulking woman who looked down at me with a dazed expression, her sword still locked against mine.
Ryu Jin-ju was the woman who appeared as the Director of the Hunter Management Bureau in Velvetsra.
Always clashing with Velvet Academy over every little thing—a short-tempered, quick-to-anger person.
Because of that, she was a character who "often" showed up as a mid-boss.
Yeah, not just once or twice, but "often."
Since she appeared that frequently, inevitably the strategies for beating her had been studied far more deeply than those for other bosses.
I felt a sense of novelty.
'Originally, the standard way to deal with Ryu Jin-ju was with skill Parrying...'
Parrying.
A technique that usually only shows up in fighting games or first-person roguelikes.
A method of timing your attack to interrupt the enemy's attack and deal damage.
But 《Velvet School Life》 wasn't a game where the Player could directly control a character's body, nor was it a first-person game with that kind of freedom.
The only things allowed, outside of pre-designated "movement paths" and "item usage," were skill activations.
In other words, timing a skill to cut off the enemy's attack and then finishing them with a basic attack—that was the full extent of "Parrying" you could attempt in Velvetsra.
'I'd planned to try a few times and, if it didn't work, go straight into skill Parrying... but damn, it actually got cut off by a basic attack again.'
I hadn't pushed for this challenge without any thought.
The key to parrying Ryu Jin-ju was landing an attack during one of her specific animations.
So I'd tried it because sometimes, if the stars aligned, a multi-hit character's attacks would trigger the parry automatically!
Maybe it was the difference between playing the game in third-person and seeing it in first-person now, though.
At first, catching that split-second Parrying Point—that instant where you could stop the attack—was harder than I expected.
Back when I used to play Velvetsra, I could do it with my eyes closed.
So at the start, I increased the number of basic attacks, trying to forcibly shove them into the parrying points I already knew to raise the "probability" of a parry.
And then, gradually, I reduced the number of strikes, honing my precision and narrowing the margin of error.
Those attempts gradually bridged the gap between my game knowledge and the reality it had become.
'Alright, I'm getting the feel for this now.'
"......How in the world...."
Ryu Jin-ju still seemed unable to grasp reality, her eyes darting between her swung greatsword and the thin blade blocking it.
I adjusted my grip on Moonlight's hilt and let a smirk tug at the corner of my lips.
"At this point, I think I could win even if I fought half-assed. Wouldn't it be better for you to just give up?"
"......Don't talk shit."
At my light provocation, Ryu Jin-ju growled low in her throat as if something had snapped.
But unlike at the start, her voice was now thick with wariness.
"Whoa there, bad words are a no-go. This is all-ages."
"You.... You son of a bitch—!!!!"
Abruptly, her face twisted savagely.
I looked at that expression calmly and thought to myself.
'Phase 2.'
* * *
Objectively, it was a fight where Jin Yu-ha was overwhelmingly disadvantaged.
But as if to prove everyone wrong, he dominated Ryu Jin-ju in their confrontation.
And what's more, he did it without any tricks, without any skill assistance—in a pure contest of strength.
"What in the world is this...."
The woman wearing the Fox Mask blinked, wondering if what she'd just witnessed was actually real.
That was when it happened.
Huff—
Huff—
Ryu Jin-ju's breathing suddenly turned ragged, and her muscles repeatedly swelled and deflated.
Crack-crack-craaaack—!
An eerie, bone-shattering sound burst forth,
and her already gorilla-like frame expanded even larger.
THUMP—
THUMP—
Her heartbeat boomed like a drum, pounding against her massive body.
Turbulent Mana exploded around her, surging and rippling.
Ryu Jin-ju drooled uncontrollably as if she had lost all reason.
It was a clearly abnormal sight.
This was not a quirk recorded in the profile Fox Mask had previously compiled on Ryu Jin-ju.
"C-Commander! That's—the rookie's in danger...!"
Fox Mask's eyes flew wide open as she whipped her head around toward Baek Seol-hee.
"GRAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"
Ryu Jin-ju let out a roar that seemed dredged up from her very core and charged straight at Jin Yu-ha.
Just as the Extermination Squad members flinched at the sight,
"Don't make a fuss."
Baek Seol-hee's cold voice held them in place.
Even in such a dangerous situation, Baek Seol-hee remained composed.
Because Jin Yu-ha's eyes behind his mask were calm and steady, as if he had already expected this.
But even Baek Seol-hee couldn't help replaying the scene Jin Yu-ha had just shown, marveling inwardly.
'......He still had more to show, then.'
She had never once imagined Jin Yu-ha would lose this fight from the start.
She had faith that if her disciple, whom she'd watched all this time, stepped forward of his own accord, he would resolve it by any means necessary.
But she truly hadn't expected him to break through the impasse using a method like this.
'He was aiming for the Circulation Gap.'
What Jin Yu-ha called Parrying looked a little different through Baek Seol-hee's eyes.
Mana was fundamentally a heteromorphic energy.
It was not static but fluid; it did not move in straight lines but circulated in cycles.
In other words, what people called drawing up Mana was speeding up that circulation,
narrowing the gap between emission and absorption so that it appeared to be constantly emitted.
Because of this, a gap inevitably existed between one cycle and the next.
'Specifically, the instant where Mana becomes exactly "0."'
The interval Baek Seol-hee had named the "Circulation Gap."
But that gap was so brief that anyone without exceptional skill would fail to perceive it.
Would it even last 0.001 seconds?
And just as no two people share identical fingerprints, the cycle at which the gap appeared also varied from person to person.
In other words, the moment that gap reveals itself, the opponent is no different from an ordinary person—but to strike it precisely,
you have to understand your opponent more thoroughly than they understand themselves.
And even if you did grasp it, to aim for that gap and land a clean hit amid a frantic storm of blades in combat?
'......That would be difficult even for me.'
Her disciple—like an onion, peeled layer after layer only to reveal a new facet every time.
As complex emotions boiled up inside her, Baek Seol-hee quietly closed her eyes.
'......Haa.'
A languid sigh escaped her lips.
Gulp.
She swallowed dryly.
Whoosh—!
Whoosh—!
Ryu Jin-ju's greatsword accelerated even further.
The massive blade churned through the space with a ferocious speed that made it nearly invisible to the eye.
CRASH—!!!
Crunch-crack-crack!
Every time the sword touched the office furniture, it was sent scattering as if it had been chucked into a blender.
But Jin Yu-ha's eyes behind his mask remained low and steady.
He tracked the enemy's sword to the very end.
And he moved his body.
As if he had already grasped every possible sword path beforehand.
Twisting his body one beat faster than Ryu Jin-ju's blade, he evaded it by a hair's breadth.
A precarious feat where one misplaced step would surely end in a fatal wound.
And the person who absolutely could not accept this situation
was none other than Ryu Jin-ju herself.
'Don't make me laugh....'
She put more strength into her hands, and her Mana boiled over.
There was no way that bastard was that strong.
Whether judged by the quality of his Mana or the quantity.
Now that she was using the Skill 《Berserker》, even her speed was vastly superior.
"DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH!!!!!!!!"
But she couldn't land a hit on her opponent.
The enemy slipped past the tip of her blade like a butterfly drifting through empty air.
'......Just what the hell is this bastard...!!!!!! What are you?!!!!!!!!!!'
Even through her fogged reason, Ryu Jin-ju ground her teeth.
And then, the moment she gripped the hilt with both hands and swung horizontally—
That instant.
Once again, Jin Yu-ha's blue blade moved.
CLAAAAAAAANG—!!!!!!!!!!
Sword met sword.
Along with a shrill, deafening blast, a violent gust erupted, shoving aside the wrecked debris of the office around them.
The man had stopped the colossal blade so lightly.
His black hair fluttered in the wind.
Like that, the giant greatsword was brought to a halt once more before that thin blade.
At that moment, Jin Yu-ha's sword, locked against Ryu Jin-ju's, began to move with a nimble swiftness.
Swish—
The blue blade thrust into the air.
Ryu Jin-ju saw the sword's movement but couldn't even think to move her own body.
SWISH—!!!
Moonlight traced a clean, straight line and dropped straight down.
CRAAAASH—!!!
Ryu Jin-ju took the sword strike to her head.
"......This doesn't make any sense."
With those words, brimming with devastation,
her eyes spun—whirling—back in her head.
Thud—!
Whump.
Kicking up dust, the massive body toppled sideways.
"......Well, no need to kill her."
He'd struck with the flat of the blade to render his opponent unconscious.
Jin Yu-ha turned his sword and sheathed it back into its scabbard.
The members of the Demonized Human Extermination Squad had been watching this scene, their jaws dropped.
"......."
A moment of silence descended.
"WHOOOAAAAHHH!!"
"Wh-what the hell was that!!!"
"He's just a monster...!!!"
"Insane!!!!"
"He's lost his mind!!!!!!"
The Demonized Human Extermination Squad members shouted in voices full of excitement, completely forgetting they were supposed to be hiding.
The extermination squad members didn't have eyes as sharp as Baek Seol-hee's, so they couldn't see the true essence of the swordsmanship Jin Yu-ha was displaying now.
But they could well grasp that this situation was completely ridiculous, and a feverish heat blazed up among the squad members.
"Quiet."
Baek Seol-hee rebuked them in a cold voice, calming the squad members down.
However, what they had just seen still lingered strongly in their minds, so the squad members kept muttering under their breath.
"......No, does that even make sense? How do you even do that...?"
"Forget the rookies—what if even we get taken down by the kid?"
"Uh.... Should we be calling the kid sir now?"
"I still don't get it. He won, sure, but how do you win in a straight-up fight? How did he block that? I feel like my common sense is shattering...."
While the squad members were in an uproar denying reality like that,
Baek Seol-hee descended from the ceiling and entered the wrecked space.
Tap—
At that, Jin Yu-ha turned his head.
"Instructor."
"Mm."
At her disciple's call, Baek Seol-hee nodded.
"......Was I very late? I mean, I tried to finish as fast as I could, but...."
Jin Yu-ha spoke hesitantly, reading Baek Seol-hee's mood.
At this, the Extermination Squad members stared at the kid in disbelief, wondering what insane thing he was talking about....
But Baek Seol-hee knew that Jin Yu-ha was genuinely asking.
A rich smile bloomed across Baek Seol-hee's face, hidden by her mask.
Swish—
She reached out and moved her hand toward Jin Yu-ha's head.
And she ruffled his hair.
Because putting into words just how proud and delighted she felt right now
was, as usual, too difficult.
At that, Jin Yu-ha flinched slightly, but soon, as if in a good mood, he accepted her touch.
Pat.
Pat.
.
.
.
"So that's the treatment you get when you become her disciple...."
"Honestly, if it were me, I'd raise that kid over you bitches any day too."
At those words, the Extermination Squad members looked at each other, then nodded awkwardly.