Chapter 115
Chapter 115
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: Side Story
Chapter Title: Yesterday's Friend, Today's Enemy
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Yesterday's friend, today's enemy.
I wonder when it started.
When I began to admire you.
From the standpoint of my superior bloodline, it was a truth my clan could never know—that I admired a hunter from a commoner background with no backing whatsoever.
But even so, I envied you.
You looked incredible, you truly were incredible, and above all, you were ridiculously strong.
Had your bloodline been superior as well, you might have been far more extraordinary than you already were.
The days we fought together side by side felt like a trip to an amusement park, no matter how brutal the battlefield.
So why did you, of all people, suddenly vanish one day?
The day you—who seemed capable of devouring anything—came to a halt.
My own world ground to a stop alongside yours...
"Im Eonneeeeeeeeeon!!"
Crunch!
Her arm, stretched out using elasticity like a rubber band, relentlessly targeted Branch Chief Im Eonnyeon.
She tried to dodge and close in, but every time, powers with absurd properties—like disintegration or toxicity—scattered around like spray.
'I can't get close at all...?'
Back in the day, she would have just powered through with brute force.
But now, Emma Sarlemagne—hailed as the strongest clan head among the top ten clans' leaders—had far surpassed her former power.
"While you were standing still, I grew stronger."
"...!"
"The day you turned coward in the midst of war and froze... that's when my own fragile time finally began to turn properly."
First things first, she had to stop this raging fool.
With that in mind, Im Eonnyeon was prepared to cast her allure around her, even if it meant feeling that shame again.
But at that moment.
Sniff, sniff.
"...Alcohol?"
A pungent smell assaulted her nostrils, enough to make her head ring a little. No, this was closer to gasoline?
Anyway, the kind of odor that would melt a normal person's brain on contact began to waft through the air.
"Flammable."
"!!"
Before she could even strike a cute pose, Clan Head Emma had turned all the air around her into a flammable substance.
And as soon as Im Eonnyeon tried to leap back upon realizing it...
"Explosive."
BOOM!!
A massive mushroom cloud erupted over the ground where the two stood, as if a nuclear bomb had detonated.
"Urk?!"
"Gahhh...!"
This attack inflicted fatal damage not only on her foe, Im Eonnyeon, but on the caster herself, Clan Head Emma.
Yet she used it anyway—because she refused to lose.
"You lunatic... If I hadn't blocked most of it, Yeouido would've been obliterated, and in the worst case, the entire Korean Peninsula might've vanished. You know that, right?"
Im Eonnyeon's body—the one thing she had to protect amid it all—was now covered in burns across nearly half its surface.
Her right arm and right leg barely moved anymore.
Her right eye was almost blind. She was half-dead, plain and simple.
But the one disappointed by that sight was none other than Emma Sarlemagne, who had inflicted it.
"You've... really grown weak."
"What?"
"The 'War God' we fought alongside in the same camp during World War II? That version of you is completely gone."
"......"
"That last attack? If you'd been trying to dodge it alone, you would've managed somehow. Or better yet, if you'd unleashed your 'Ultimate Technique' without a care for those around you, we wouldn't even be here."
"Emma...!"
"What are you now? Even in the Korean Peninsula War, you stayed in the rear. You let Seolgi—your own granddaughter-like girl—become a monster's host without lifting a finger."
And that was just the beginning.
"You haven't trained at all, so your skills have regressed. And one of your most valuable assets? You didn't use him—you just let him run away."
"Valuable asset... You mean Yongchan?"
"Exactly."
Kim Yongchan, whom she'd essentially abandoned under the pretext of training to reach the Ultimate Technique.
A man with top-tier A-rank hunter power, yet she hadn't utilized him—instead designating him as a protected target he himself didn't want.
"If that boy were here right now, who knows? He might've broken through me."
"Huff... huff..."
"You've always been like that. Arbitrarily deeming others weak on your own whim, yet lacking the resolve of a true leader to protect anyone to the end."
Back during World War II.
From the U.S. perspective, she was the one who had to push her subordinates forward amid countless deaths.
She fled first, ultimately leading to the dissolution of a unit that had been winning victory after victory.
And now? It was just shifting that pointless worry from her subordinates to a single male hunter.
"Why abandon such a valuable male hunter?"
"......"
"Shall I guess? You saw the face of that medic from the past in that boy Kim Yongchan. Right?"
"......"
"That look on your face tells me I hit the mark."
In an era before the 20th century, when gender discrimination was even worse than today.
On a battlefield splattered with blood, the very existence of a frail male soldier was an insult in itself.
Yet defying those gazes, one male medic treated the wounds of female soldiers who fought and returned amid superhuman powers and flying bullets.
He couldn't become an officer due to his gender but enlisted as a soldier out of pure patriotism.
He was a rare young man with many features strikingly similar to the current Kim Yongchan—enough to evoke the phrase "human victory."
And at the same time...
"Ms. Im Eonnyeon, you're hurt. Let me treat you."
"Uh, uh! Th-thank you...!"
"Hey~. Squad leader. Lovebirds in a place like this?"
"A male soldier and an Asian female soldier... Talk about an ugly match made in heaven."
"Couldn't agree more. It's like all the discriminated gathered together."
"Then if those two have a kid, what the hell do you call it?"
"Hey, you lot gonna scram or not?!"
"""Yessir~."""
In modern terms, first love.
On the Joseon land where blood had been spilling since birth, he was the first man Im Eonnyeon ever showed interest in.
A discriminated Asian female soldier and an even more discriminated male medic.
A match that could connect despite their shortcomings.
Well, everyone knew how that ended—a sad ending.
"Do you still remember that medic's name?"
"Marco... Marco Robert."
"Right. So you saw Marco in that male hunter Kim Yongchan?"
"...Yes."
It couldn't be helped.
Even if times had changed, combat professions like hunter or soldier still didn't suit men—shouldn't suit them.
And if there were many such men, fine.
But in over 200 years of life, Im Eonnyeon had only seen two: Robert and Yongchan.
She'd trusted the first one and died for it, so this time she chose not to trust—to keep him alive.
Even if betrayed, you had to be alive to get angry or grieve.
But now, even that seemed a luxury to you.
"You can't protect anything."
"Emma...!"
"When you and Marco came to help our France amid the fierce battles with the Nazis, honestly, we were thrilled."
Clan Head Emma revealed the cruel truth through her fury-tinged expression and sorrowful eyes.
"Even when everyone thought it was over, Marco—a man—tried to save every last one of us until the end. Right in the middle of the battlefield."
"Yes... he did."
"Exactly. And as a result, Marco died."
"!!"
Because I was weak.
Because you were weak.
And above all, because Marco himself was too weak.
Our glorious tale was forced into hiatus that day.
Yet the one who couldn't recover from the shock and grew even weaker—what the hell do you plan to protect now?
"That male hunter Kim Yongchan will walk the exact same path as Marco."
"Hey, Emma!"
"No, wait—maybe not. He's linked to Seolgi's body, your childhood friend. At least better than Marco, since it's internal?"
"You bastard...!"
Im Eonnyeon's ability:Enchantment.
In this reverse world dominated by lust, it was an ability that could almost be called invincible, but it wasn't without risks.
Like right now.
If the caster herself—supposed to look alluring—was consumed by rage and couldn't control her expression, the ability couldn't activate in the first place.
"Explosive."
"?!"
Bang!
Was it because real combat had been too long? That cheap provocation created an opening.
In the blink of an eye, Im Eonnyeon detonated her own soles and closed the distance to Clan Head Emma right before her.
"Neurotoxic."
Then, the arm that paralyzed everything it touched.
Stab.
"Guhk!"
Only after it pierced her chest did Im Eonnyeon realize this was a trap set by her former comrade and subordinate.
"Em, Em...!"
"I'm different from you. The burdens I carry are on another level."
"Urk!"
The former comrade and subordinate tightly embraced her friend's body as it vomited blood and began to cool.
And now, her mortal enemy: Emma Sarlemagne.
"While you regressed after witnessing one man's death, I pressed forward to ensure no such death ever happens again."
"......"
"And now, I've been appointed the strongest clan head among the world's top ten clans."
Finally, as the neurotoxin-laced arm withdrew, Im Eonnyeon's body collapsed to the ground in a spray of blood, wretched and broken.
Step, step.
"Now that I have everything in my grasp, I'll protect that girl as if she were my own daughter."
So.
"No one will ever block my path again."